


In the Summer All The Lights Would Shine

by vodkaanddebauchery



Series: In the Summer All The Lights Would Shine/Hello Kitty Microwave 'Verse: [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: A change of scenery, Americana, Angst, Control Issues, Cute Dogs, Healing, Hello Kitty Microwave, Home, M/M, Natasha Knows Things, Natasha continues to know things, Ninja OT3, Original Character(s), Pets, Post-CAWTS, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Puppies, Real friends violate your privacy, Slow Build, Therapy, Therapy Cake, Violence, fictional dog is in danger, finding happiness, house renovation, it's starting to get kind of dark, the Avengers are good at giving gifts, threat of violence toward animals
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-15
Updated: 2014-11-23
Packaged: 2018-02-04 17:51:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 46,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1787770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vodkaanddebauchery/pseuds/vodkaanddebauchery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Of course Steve misses the Avengers - misses being part of a team - and he's always overwhelmingly glad to hear from them, to hear that they're safe, but after his search for the Winter Soldier had gone, for lack of a better word, cold, he eventually stopped asking why and started asking the important question, the real one:</p><p>What makes you happy?</p><p>Apparently, Steve's moved to Nebraska to find out.</p><p>(Multi-chapter, approaching completion. New chapters every few days. Additional tags, warnings, and pairings will be added with updates.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A) I needed some intense healing after seeing CA:TWS for the third time and I figured Steve did too so I started writing this on a whim.  
> (That was two months ago and since then I have cried actual tears about a fictional dog, lost about a week's worth of sleep total while writing, and somehow an entire 'verse has manifested around this fic. Sorry, not sorry.)
> 
> B) Title is from Bruce Springsteen's The Mansion on the Hill. "Born in the USA" and "Nebraska" have both gotten some pretty heavy rotation in the past two months.
> 
> C) I'll be updating every few days and adding warnings, tags, and pairings as they develop. 
> 
> D) As always, I am so very grateful to you, the reader, for taking the time to click through and entertain my inane babbling. I appreciate every single kudos and comment you leave. ♥

Fifty empty miles outside of Omaha, at half past five in the morning Steve is jerked out of his long-distance driving meditative lull when he has to swerve a hard left to avoid hitting something in the middle of the road. Sam jolts awake in the passenger's seat, sitting straight up even if his eyes haven't opened all the way yet. "Whuzzit?" 

"Dunno," Steve says, because he doesn't. Lying next to the divider is a black mass, a blot breaking the monotony of the light gray concrete interstate in the light gray country dawn. It doesn't move, not even when he inches the truck forward and parks it a good ten yards away.  
"The hell - just some roadkill, must be a coyote or something." Sam's a little more alert now, though he's yawning loudly.

"I don't think so," Steve says. When he opens the door to look he's not even thinking to bring the loaded service firearm in the truck's console, just getting out, leaving the door hanging open.

The dog gives a full-body twitch at the sound of Steve's approach. A similar movement had first caught his eye when he was driving. Steve inches closer. Thank God, it's still alive and appears to be in one piece, though there's a stain like rust on the concrete around it, and an uncomfortable smell of sickness. 

As soon as he gets close enough, the dog snarls shockingly loud for such a small, balled up creature.

"Hey boy, it's okay," he says, walking around to its other side. The snarls grow louder and now he can see the red of gums and lolling tongue and the white of teeth. It doesn't look to be much older than a puppy, a year and a half at the most, but is growling like a cornered wolf.

"Easy, boy, easy," he says, backing off, keeping his eyes on it. It doesn't move. It probably can't. 

"I need, uh. Towels and my shield," he says to Sam, back at the truck. Sam looks at him like he's lost his damn fool mind.  
"You've lost your damn fool mind," he says flatly. "That thing is on death's door and is scared out of his mind, he'll probably rip your hand open as soon as you touch him."  
"I can't leave him in the road," Steve says, frowning. "He's scared, not vicious. And in pain. I can't leave something that's suffering like this, Sam, it's not right."  
Sam fixes him with a Look, the _are you really this righteous and dumb_ look. "Fine, damn it, let me help you before you get your damn fingers bitten off." 

The dog snarls when they approach and drape it in the thickest towels they pulled from the Necessities box in the back of the truck, but the second they gently lift it, from the concrete road to the back of Steve's shield, the snarling stops and the whimpers begin. 

One of the front legs is a mangled mess of smashed tissue, obviously where the brunt of impact from a vehicle hit. Steve is careful not to jostle it or get his hand anywhere near the dogs face while they're carrying back to the truck. 

Inverted like a cradle, the shield is gently set to rest in the backseat next to their duffel bags. Plans are already rewriting themselves in Steve's head as he climbs back into the front. "We'll get into town, find a vet's office, drop the dog off and grab some breakfast on the way to the house. Mr. Cohn said he'll meet us at 7.30, said he's an early riser."  
Sam huffs, rubbing his eyes. "You two are gonna be the best of friends, then." 

The dog whines low and frantic all the way to the outskirts of town.

 

~**~

 

Rick Cohn's in his late middle ages and reminds Steve of Santa Claus. 

He lacks the white bushy beard, sure, but bears that quiet chuckling sort of jolly humor, and the paunch around the middle to boot. He grips Steve's hand firm and shakes, all friendly enthusiasm, when they first meet in the unpaved driveway. It's half-past seven in the morning and there's perspiration damp on his t-shirt collar; the day promises to be balmy-warm already.

"Grant, it's my pleasure to meet you," he says "Didn't expect you'd be quite so tall, just from talking to you on the phone." 

"Most people say that," says Steve, with an abashed smile. "This is my good friend Sam, he's helping me with the move and renovation. Couldn't have done this without him."  
"Sir." Rick grips Sam's hand as well, smiling broadly at the two of them. 

"I'm indebted to you too," he tells Sam. "Didn't think we'd ever get someone to take the old place - Zelda kept on suggesting we should just bulldoze and let the land go to the corn, but this is where my brothers and I grew up and she knows as well as I that we couldn't do that." 

"No, sir," Steve says, looking up at the house looming, empty, behind them. "It's beautiful. I'm grateful you're letting me buy it." 

Rick scoffs, rummaging around his pocket and emerging with an honest to god blue cotton handkerchief, with which he dabs at the back of his neck. "Grateful? I'm grateful to you, that I don't have to renovate the entire thing!" 

"How much of a fixer-upper did you say this was?" Sam asks cautiously on the creaky, splintering porch, while Rick unlocks the door and ushers them inside like a fussy butler. Yeah, okay, there might have been a reason Steve didn't let him see the listing photos when the inklings of this crazy idea first took root. 

Rick overhears him. "Oh, it's a project, to be sure. Bob - my eldest brother - undid most of the damage to the upstairs bath and bedrooms before his heart attack back in '03. That laid him up before he could start on the cosmetic issues." 

Of which there are many: the living room and kitchen are a mess of peeling floral wallpaper, ugly threadbare forest-green carpeting, cheap cabinetry, cobwebs, and outdated appliances. Steve feels his shoes stick to the floor if he stays stationary for too long. Curiously, Sam flicks the old-fashioned switch in the kitchen; it clicks, but the overhead light stays resolutely dark. The downstairs bathroom off the kitchen is tiny, barely enough room to turn around. They don't even risk opening the pantry. 

"We'll get the electric running quick as we can," Rick says by way of apology. "You're gonna want the cool air this summer, it's gonna be a scorcher." 

"Sure it's not haunted? No ghosts?" Sam asks Steve quietly when Rick walks around the kitchen, remarking loudly that they'd better watch their steps, there looks to be a touch of damage to some of the floorboards, nothing they can't fix....  
"Just the ones I'm bringing with me." 

Sam crosses his arms. "Yeah, well, joke all you like, I'm at least staying until the lights are on and you won't have to ward them off with a Maglite." 

Steve chuckles, bumping his shoulder as they follow Rick to the screened-off back porch through the kitchen, where every spider in the county has taken up residence. "Thanks, but I'll take the ghosts if you want to get the spiders." 

Sam shoves him, laughing, before Rick bustles them off back inside, up a rickety staircase for a tour of the three tiny bedrooms which are stale and musty, and with even more peeling wallpaper, but the middle one has a very nice view. Finally, there's the highlight, a tiled bathroom that was state of the art in 1973. It causes them both to recoil before Sam starts laughing uproariously, a nightmare in Pepto-Bismol pink. 

Steve's decided: It's a great house.

 

~**~

 

"Isn't it a great house?"  
"Depends on your definition of great," Sam says thoughtfully, chewing on his burger. He clears his mouth with a sip of Coke, honest to god, Coke from a glass bottle. Steve might have had to bodily keep himself from waxing nostalgic when the diner waitress handed them their glass bottles. "See, _my_ definition of a great house involves stainless steel fixtures, hardwood floors, no mortgage, oh and, hmm, no bathrooms the color of indigestion. What is _your_ definition of a great house?"

"You should've seen the little rathole apartments we used to rent before the War," Steve says. "This place is a damn palace compared to those - I remember the one time the front door had come off, not the handle, but the whole front door. Bucky woke me up yelling at one in the morning, trying to chase a pigeon out - " Steve suddenly takes a vested interest in squirting more ketchup onto his plate. He clears his throat. 

"Anyway, we should have electricity by the end of the week," he says, dragging his fries through the puddle of ketchup. "Rick and Zelda have offered to bring their camper-trailer out to the property for us to sleep in, and Rick's going to talk with his cousin down at the water company to get the house back on the public line."

Sam finishes his burger and drains his Coke. "It's a little eerie, watching you here -" His voice drops, so the senior couple in the booth behind them can't hear. "I am having cheeseburgers and old-fashioned Cokes with my friend Captain America down at the local greasy spoon in Nebraska, and he is taking to small-town-USA life like a duck to water. I'm expecting to be dive-bombed by eagles and serenaded by the Liberty Bell and maybe kissed by George Washington's shambling corpse as soon as we walk out the door." 

Steve snorts loudly at the mental image, choking on his food a little. "Sounds pretty patriotic. Will there be fireworks?" 

Sam points his empty Coke bottle at him. "No, I'm serious, listen to me. I'm a little creeped out by the whole Middle America thing but seriously, Ste - _Grant_ -" he corrects himself, barely stumbling over Steve's assumed name, "you've looked happier since you got the key to that house than I've seen you in the past year. And if living like Leave it to Beaver is what it takes, well, I just gotta say I'm glad that you're finding something. What do you think?" 

Steve goes quiet again, staring at the remnants of his cheeseburger on his plate. "I think it's gonna be a lot of work," he admits. "And I can't help but think that I'm being irresponsible by doing this."

Adopting a mock-thoughtful expression, Sam scrutinizes him with no less of the same intensity that he reserves for his vets. "Hmm, yeah, because taking care of yourself and looking for a little happiness is totally irresponsible, right?" 

Well, he's not wrong, but he mutters something about superhero martyr complexes that makes Steve laugh when he gets up to pay the bill. 

 

~**~

 

"Congratulations, it's a girl." 

Steve raises his eyebrows. "I wasn't even aware I was expecting, but thank you." 

The vet's name tag, pinned to her lightweight white coat, proclaims her to be Dr. Emma Tiedmann. She's a full head and a half shorter than him, wearing jeans and polymer clay cat earrings, and after she strips her latex gloves off and cans them she turns to grin at Steve, revealing a little space between her front teeth. "Well then, double congratulations, you're a papa now. Want to see her?" 

She leads Steve and Sam down the office hall - if it can be called that, provided there's only three exam rooms before double doors open to the recovery room. From a distance Steve hears dogs barking and what sounds like a very annoyed cat. The recovery room is quiet and warm though, and in a blanket-lined kennel is the dog Steve picked up seven hours ago, very still and breathing the heavy, steady breaths of the recently-sedated. 

"She's not chipped," Dr. Tiedmann says over Steve, as he kneels and peers in at the dog. "No collar, of course. And no one in the county's put out a notice for a missing shepherd mix. My guess is she's a farm pup, wandered a little too far and couldn't find her way back home. There are tons of them out here." 

The dog opens her eyes blearily and looks up at the noisy people. Steve notes the little cannula stuck into one of her thin legs that she's not even concerned about worrying at, how with hydration she already looks a little more filled out. Cleaned up, she's a very pretty dog, will be even prettier once she's got a few meals in. One of her ears flops, the other stands alert.

Sam looks at the ears, and then at Steve, and quietly says, "Grant."  
"You can open the door - very slowly - and let her sniff you," Dr. Tiedmann suggests. There is no way this petite woman could be playing the devil's advocate to this degree with two people she's just met, he thinks, but maybe this is just par for the course in Nebraska. Steve opens the kennel and very slowly sticks his curled fingers next to the dog's muzzle. For a moment the memory of snarling, gleaming teeth is potent, but now the dog doesn't even have the wherewithal to lift her head, let alone show her teeth. 

After a moment, very weakly, the dog's tongue darts out and swipes across one of Steve's knuckles. "Oh, she likes you," Dr. Tiedmann says brightly. "She's a good girl, isn't she?"  
" _Grant_ " Sam says, tone suggesting that they are all in some sort of imminent danger. 

Maybe he is in imminent danger. Steve looks at him helplessly, shoulders slumped. 

"New to town, Mr Robertson?" The doctor asks, as they're settling up at the front. There are things like heart worm medication brochures and a little bowl of miniature dog biscuits on the counter, but Steve is most startled to find a fat tabby tomcat with a collar that reads 'Gravy,' sleeping on the register. Sam is waiting in the lobby, weighed down by a matching cat which has apparently decided his lap is the perfect place to take an afternoon nap.

"Just Grant, please, and yes ma'am," Steve answers earnestly. "I bought Mr. Cohn's old property, we're starting to renovate this week."

Dr. Tiedmann is punching in rapidfire commands to the computer, but when she prints out the bill there are only two entries - EMERGENCY SURGERY, the cost of which makes Steve wince a little, and GOOD SAMARITAN - which doesn't give a number, itemized only by a negative percent which Steve realizes reduces the amount that the surgery should have been almost by half. "Ma'am?"

"Oh, you got Rick's house, on the acreage across from the corn?" Dr. Tiedmann responds conversationally. "That's good, my uncle used to make house calls there. They used to keep horses, grew some soy in the back too. I went on a call too, once, when I was still a tech. Their barn cat had tussled with a raccoon, got himself tore open pretty good."

"Did the cat make it?" Steve asks, still trying to draw her attention to the discrepancies in the bill.

"Yeah, within a week he was up walking and I'll be damned if that cat won't outlive us all." She chuckles, showing off that little gap between her teeth, and finally sees what Steve's trying to draw her attention to. She raises her eyebrows. "We offer a payment plan if need be -"

"Oh, no, ma'am, I got this," Steve says, opening his wallet. He pays in cash, a lot of cash, and takes the time to count out each bill. It's her turn to raise her eyebrows and he grimaces, a little embarrassed. "New to town, still don't have my bank set up," he offers. "What I meant to ask is, are you sure there's nothing more I can...?"

Dr. Tiedmann makes a few clicks on her computer and opens the register for the bills. When she's done, she walks back out from behind the counter, escorts him slowly to the door. "Grant, you may not realize it, and I dunno where you moved from, but we have a different way of doing things here. Call me old fashioned but I think that people should be rewarded for doing the right thing, and this morning you did the right thing. Most other folks would have just kept on driving. Call the discount my gratitude that you stopped for a mangy little girl with a smashed leg. Besides," she adds, grinning cheekily, "I gotta hunch you'll be shelling out adoption fees here pretty soon."

Steve grins, and underneath the cat gravity of Biscuits the fat tomcat, Sam sighs and struggles to get up. "Biscuits and Gravy are looking for homes too," Emma offers slyly. 

"Thank you, ma'am," Sam says, shifting and trying to lift the cat with little success. "I'm just here to help this guy with the heavy lifting. Pets aren't covered in my lease back home."

"Shame," Dr. Tiedmann says. "I think Biscuit's taken quite a shine to you."

"Is this how you make rent?" Sam asks, but he's laughing. Steve eventually takes pity on Sam, and goes to attempt scooping up the cat, who protests by rolling over and exposing his vast furry stomach. "Adoption fees? Your skills of conviction are second to none."

"Nah, I do this so my boys won't want to keep every stray that comes through these doors," Dr. Tiedmann says, taking the cat from Steve. "Four dogs and two cats in a duplex is a little much for even me."

"I'm thinking a dog might be too much for me right now," Steve admits, patting the fat cat on its head. "Moving, the house - I wish I could, but I don't think I'll be able to."

"Right," Dr. Tiedmann says, smiling, but she manages to look skeptical of him anyhow. 

Only a few hours later, back in the shabby old farmhouse, does Sam bring it up again. "You're not going to take that dog, are you?"

"I don't know," Steve says honestly. "I wasn't just being polite when I said I wish I could."

"You know," Sam says conversationally, "you can't feel responsible for every damaged stray that shows up and snaps at you when you try to help it. You realize that, right?"  
"Yeah, I know." Steve pokes experimentally at the dry rot on the kitchen floorboards with his toe. "But that doesn't mean I won't stop trying to help them if I can."

Sam sighs a long-suffering sigh and goes to brave a peek into the previously-unexplored pantry. Maybe it takes Steve a little while to realize he wasn't talking entirely about the dog.

 

~**~

 

When Steve can't sleep, his two options are to either work out or to think until his brain is in tangles. Honestly speaking, he prefers the former to the latter - punching bags and weight machines don't hit back like memories do.

Tonight, in a camper-trailer that smells of old canvas and citronella, listening to Sam snoring above the buzzing night insects outside, he's reminded so strongly of those months spent on the road chasing a ghost, he's revisiting the sting of that failure before he can stop himself. 

The file Natasha handed him eighteen months ago is still in his duffel, underneath his too-small bed, but he hasn't been able to bring himself to look at it in months.  
"You might not want to pull on that thread," Natasha had told him after they had pulled a fortress to the ground, but he pulled on it like a parachute cord anyway and followed where the ravels lead him for months. And months. 

Eventually, he stopped pulling because he reached the end of that line and there was no one there, just a crippling sadness and a couple of memories that gave him some not so great dreams. 

On the trailer's pull-out couch, Sam snuffles and rolls over. It's on his advice that Steve's even here, in the middle of nowhere, staring up at an old chipboard ceiling and countering the sadness with the first sense of purpose - and maybe, as Sam said, happiness - that Steve's felt in months. 

SHIELD is slowly in the process of rebuilding and filling several new vacancies, and there's always a party going on at Stark's Tower in New York. But Steve, once he stopped going to be polite and started feeling uncomfortable, kept turning those invitations down, and Tony eventually stopped sending them. 

Occasionally Tony still sends Steve short video messages (Steve still doesn't know what a Vine is) of Clint and Natasha arm wrestling, surrounded by beer cans and takeout cartons, or of Thor sprawled on a couch in his full regalia, laughing at something on TV. Natasha has his number on speed dial and will text him, and he always gets a laugh when one of the world's foremost master assassins punctuates her messages with smiley faces.

Of course Steve misses them - misses being part of a team - and he's always overwhelmingly glad to hear from them, to hear that they're safe, but after his search for the Winter Soldier had gone, for lack of a better word, cold, he eventually stopped asking why and started asking the important question, the real one:

_What makes you happy?_

Apparently, Steve's moved to Nebraska to find out.

 

~**~

 

On the morning that they begin construction (or, as Sam calls it, therapeutic destruction), Steve opens the camper door, stares, and calls Rick Cohn on his cell.  
"A dumpster seems to have magically appeared in the front yard overnight," he says. "You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you, sir?"

Across the line he hears Rick chuckle. "Maybe the demo fairy visited you last night," he says. "Good luck, Grant. Let me know if you find any cash hidden in the walls, pretty sure I left a jar of pennies and dimes somewhere when I was eleven. Hopefully by now it's multiplied." He hangs up, laughing at himself. 

"Dude," Sam says, when he sees the dumpster, as they're running to get gas station coffee and doughnuts. "I'm starting to think that we're in the Twilight Zone - I dunno if you've -"  
"I've seen the Twilight Zone, yes," Steve says, picking up a few apples and bottles of water, some Gatorade for the both of them later in the day. He enjoyed it, but the episode with the monkey on the plane still gives him the creeps if he thinks about it for too long.

Sam is pouring creamer into the largest sized travel coffee the gas station offers. "It's starting to get a little creepy. Everyone here is you." Steve raises his eyebrows, waiting for Sam to explain. "You know what I mean, don't give me that - doing the right thing all the time, 'aw shucks I've known you for twenty-four hours, here you can use my dumpster, golly we're so open and honest in small town America.' It's disturbingly wholesome."

"Yeah, it's a definite change from New York," Steve says dryly, heading for the checkout counter, and doesn't need to add _and SHIELD._

They start early and by ten in the morning, when it's just starting to warm up, the living room has progressed rapidly back to a blank canvas, both Steve and Sam enjoying stripping the walls of the horrid wallpaper and pulling back the threadbare carpets in clouds of dust maybe a little too much. Steve gets a little overzealous taking down the wallpaper and before he knows it there's a hole that he can see stripped timber and studs through. 

"Oops," he says, tossing the sheet of wallpaper to the floor. Sam glances at him, streaks of dust on his face, and gleefully puts his boot through the old drywall. 

"Oops," he cheerfully agrees. By noon the entire living room is stripped down to its bones. They don't talk, they wreck, only walking outside to toss the junk into the dumpster and wet their dry mouths with water.

After lunch they get started on the kitchen, and save for avoiding the damaged portion of the floor and a particularly horrid incident involving the old oven and a nest of mice, it goes without incident. It's like working out, Steve thinks, popping his Gatorade and chugging it - pleasantly exhausting, only with maybe a little more instant gratification. 

Sam breaks first, leaning heavily against the counter at half past three. "I'm done, man, give me a few minutes. Us mere mortals need down time."

"Take as long as you need," says Steve, tossing him his own Gatorade. "The house isn't going anywhere."  
"And neither are you?" Sam asks, opening his own energy drink.  
Steve pauses, considering. "Not unless I have good reason to."  
"Good reason being?" 

"Well, as much as I'd prefer space aliens to not invade New York again," says Steve, "that's probably one I wouldn't be able to sit out here in Nebraska."  
Sam fixes him with a look. "And what about for other reasons?"

They spent six months on the road from coast to coast. They crossed borders and smashed down doors in pursuit of a ghost. Sam, probably more than anyone else knows that the only thing that will move Steve from this house is that ghost. 

"I don't know," Steve says, abruptly capping his Gatorade, wiping his hands on his jeans, and going to drag the clunky old oven out of the kitchen and into the afternoon heat. 

 

Everything they say about small towns, everyone knowing everyone, is absolutely true. The next afternoon Steve's at the corner pharmacy, with the old glass neon sign above like he hasn't seen in years, in line buying gallon jugs of water and Tiger Balm for Sam (who rolled out of bed that morning complaining about every single muscle being on lockdown) when he hears a voice behind him say, "Grant Robertson??" 

He turns - technically it's his name now, so he responds to it - and there's an older lady standing behind him, eyebrows arched. Her face is round and her graying natural curls are tamed by a bright turquoise scarf. She smiles at him like she knows him, her eyes crinkling at the sides.  
"I thought it just might be you - Rick told me what you looked like, but I didn't expect you to be such a big fella, if you don't mind me saying." 

Something clicks. Steve holds out his hand. "You must be Rick's wife." Her hand is utterly dwarfed by his when she shakes it, but she's all aglow. 

"Zelda Cohn. I apologize for not coming to introduce myself proper, but I've been on errands all day and Rick's blood pressure medication -" she gestures at the plastic grocery basket she's carrying, "so I haven't been able to stop by the house." 

"Well, the house is a mess now," Steve says, "and actually, so are my friend and I." He rubs the back of his neck. "Actually I was kind of hoping to skip formal introductions until after I've had a proper shower and shave." He's pretty sure he doesn't reek, for which he is utterly grateful - wouldn't be out in public if he knew he did, but he knows he smells of musty carpeting and is covered in drywall dust  
Zelda's eyebrows climb higher toward her salt and pepper natural curls. 

And that's how Steve and Sam end up at the Cohn's house, a little two-story ranch-style with a basement not five miles from Steve's new place, invited to use their hot water and stay for dinner. Steve graciously gives Sam the first shower because Sam is maybe a little more fastidious about bathing - Steve blames his lack of squeamishness about hygiene standards on the ETO - and sits downstairs on a squashy couch, sipping iced tea and listening to Rick talk about the house, while Zelda bakes chicken and chops tomatoes for salads. 

Rapidly Steve discovers there's more to them than small-town aww-shucks kindness. Rick had med school on his radar until he realized death and terminal diagnoses were too much for him and went into equipment sales instead; his wife Zelda volunteered for the Peace Corps for a year before getting her grad degree in therapy. 

"I remember," Rick says, a tad mistily, "thinking I'd move back into the house after college, eventually marry my girl and raise our kids in that house. Have a dog or two for the kids, keep the farm going, retire, you know."

"You didn't?" Steve asks. Rick leans forward and gives him a conspiratorial grin. 

"My college girlfriend dumped my sorry ass three weeks before we graduated," he said. "I thought for certain I'd marry her. Soured my plans, let me tell you. I became a working man. Then the morning of my three year anniversary working the new job in Lincoln, in walks this vision." When Rick looks at Zelda in the kitchen, still so obviously smitten, Steve feels his heart ache a little bit. 

"Taught me that no matter what you think your plans are, how certain we are, sometimes life throws unexpected things at you. Best we can do is adjust and find our happiness along the way."

"I think that's very wise, Rick," Steve says honestly, wrapping his hands around his glass of iced tea. 

"He got that," Zelda calls from the kitchen, "From a _Chicken Soup for the Soul_ book his nephew got him last year, don't believe a single word he says." 

"Doesn't mean it's not wise," Steve says, leaning back against the couch cushions, feeling soreness gnaw at his muscles. Rick settles back in his easy chair, chuckling. 

"What about you, Grant?" he asks. "Something gives me the feeling that you buying the house - for which I am grateful, let me tell you - is because life threw something at you." 

Chewing on his lip Steve wonders how much of the truth he can still get away with omitting while still sounding plausible. He doesn't want to lie to the Cohns, especially after they've so graciously opened their home to him. 

"I spent a lot of time devoted to work," he says. It's true, fighting was his work, and his work was his life. Life during the war was devotion to the effort. "For a long time it was my life. Last year, my job went belly-up, so to speak, around the time Sam up there asked what would make me happy. So suddenly I had a lot of free time to figure out what that was...and I spent a long time looking for something, never found it. So I figured I might as well go out on a limb and try something new in the off-chance that it could be what I was looking for." 

He's spared any further explanation when Sam comes down the stairs in a clean t-shirt and jeans, looking like a brand new man. "Who was kind enough to leave his friend hot water despite wanting to stay under that fancy rainfall showerhead for the rest of his life? This guy." 

Steve is off his feet and up the stairs as quickly as politeness will allow him. He really, _really_ wants that shower. 

Two hours later, after they're full to bursting with oven-baked chicken and rice and tremendous salads, after Sam's bonded firmly with Rick and Zelda over their weird mutual love of something called _Hell's Kitchen_ , after thanking the older couple profusely for opening their home (and just as important, their hot water) to them, Steve drives the both of them back to the trailer, where they call it an early night, eager to start bright and early on the upstairs in the morning. 

That night he falls asleep, maybe not quick and easy, but with a little less trouble. 

 

~**~

 

Over the course of the week the house is mostly stripped down to its barest of bones. The dumpster in the front yard is practically overflowing with carpeting and crumbling drywall, broken tiles and boards of old wood too dry or splintery to keep. Walking around inside the house is kind of weird now; with no soft surfaces or drywall to absorb noise, footsteps and voices bounce off the walls. Steve is beside himself with excitement, has been since they took to the violently ugly upstairs bathroom with sledgehammers and protective goggles, cheering every time another section of tile is shattered and cleared. 

On Thursday, their third day of demo, during lunch Sam returns with hoagies and tosses a plastic grocery bag filled with magazines down on the front porch next to Steve. "Time to make some tactical decisions, Cap."

They all have titles like _Old Home_ and _Country Restoration_ , and while Steve doesn't like the modern design elements he's come to associate with Tony's big ugly tower in New York, he discovers that toned down, he wouldn't mind the juxtaposition of modern and vintage in the old house (that makes him snort a little, for all intents and purposes, _he_ could be described as vintage). He finds he hates recessed lighting, is impressed by the vintage reproduction wallpapers advertised in the back of one magazine, and over their sandwiches argues with Sam about the tactical value of open floor plans. 

"Close quarters, you don't want someone to know where you are straight off the bat," Steve insists, while Sam shakes his head and counters around a mouthful of cold cuts, "Yes but the value of being able to see them and aim instead of peeking around corners - "  
"Well, I'm not _planning_ on hosting a home invasion any time soon."

Sam swallows. "Nobody _plans_ a home invasion, Cap, and while I'm sure this is the kind of friendly little town where everyone knows your name and you can leave your door unlocked, truth of the matter is there are people out there who might want to have Captain America killed while he's off on sabbatical."

That leaves an ugly taste of truth in his mouth, and Steve concedes by keeping the open floor plan to the upstairs, where he'll be sleeping, and after calling Rick to figure out which walls are load-bearing, knocks down the dividing walls with little more than his shield and some strategic shoulder strikes. Sam watches through his safety glasses, shaking his head even though he's grinning. 

With every piece removed, every trace of the house's former life lifted out to the dumpster, the house feels more and more his. It's like looking at a blank canvas, and he can't wait to start the outlining strokes of framework.

That next afternoon Steve's waiting on Sam to bring the truck back with nails and lumber for the rickety staircase (but more importantly, tacos) when an old green pickup rattles up the drive. Rick pulls up to the house, leans out of the window, and lets out a low appreciative whistle at the overflowing dumpster, the house standing empty with its doors and windows open. 

"Well, I've got some good news and some bad news for you," he says to Steve, getting out of the truck. "The good news: We should be hooked back up to electricity by Monday evening at the very latest."

"And the bad?" Steve prompts, sipping his water.

"I'm here to help you update the electric work between now and then because it's outdated and against code," Rick announces, pulling a toolbox out from under the seat. 

As they're working replacing and rerouting wires and breakers, Steve can't help but think of New York, of the helicarrier - he remembers it like a hazy dream he still can't believe actually happened. _It appears to run on some form of electricity_ , he thinks, stripping a wire, and is overcome with a fit of silent laughter so sudden he's glad Rick is upstairs taking a look at the wiring between the bedroom walls. 

Sam finally arrives with tacos, and as they eat he and Rick shoot the shit about _Dirty Jobs_ , which Steve has actually watched and enjoyed, so he's not as lost as he usually is. 

It takes nearly three whole days of the three of them working morning to dusk to bring the house out of immediate electric fire-hazard status, but on Monday night Sam tries the updated switch in the kitchen again, just like he did on their first tour. 

It clicks and then suddenly the entire room is flooded with light from the bare bulb sticking out of the ceiling. 

"Nice," Sam says, looking around at the bright kitchen appreciatively. 

Steve's not overcome, by any stretch of the imagination, but it does take him a couple of seconds to find the words to thank them. 

 

They've done a long and difficult job well, so they lock up the house and head to the classier of the two watering holes in town, Poor Boy's, which is apparently a step above Big Al's next to the laundromat and sandwich shop. Poor Boy's claim to fame, Steve learns, is that its jukebox hasn't been updated since 1988. It's mildly comforting to know he's not the only outdated piece in the building, but that illusion is ruined when Steve sees the StarkTech mp3 dock next to the cash register.

"To a job well done," Rick says with a wink, toasting Sam and Steve with his bottle of Miller. 

"God almighty, Rick," comes a voice to their side, "Zelda will have a fit if she learns you're out being a bad influence instead of helping Mr. Robertson with his house."

They turn as one and Steve's more than a little surprised to see Dr. Tiedmann sans white coat, a glass of wine in hand. She's wearing her polymer cat earrings and seems amused to see them.

"Which is why I'm swearing you all to secrecy, Emma." Rick chuckles and taps the side of his nose, giving back as good as he got. "It's a Monday night, shouldn't you and the other young'ns be home? It's past your bedtime."

Dr. Tiedmann scoffs a little, but she's smiling as she drinks her wine. "Had a euthanasia today, Rick. Think I'm entitled to have a glass of wine and feel a little sorry for myself." 

"Sorry to hear that," Rick says, raising his beer, but Steve's suddenly very alert, panic ringing in his gut. It must read in his face because Dr. Tiedmann smiles all gap-toothed at him, not without kindness.

"No need for alarm, Mr. Robertson, your little girl is fine."  
"Well, she's not _my_ little girl," Steve begins, but suddenly Dr. Tiedmann is between him and Rick, opening her cell phone and shoving pictures of the little shepherd mix into his and Sam's faces. 

"You've got to be kidding me," is all Sam says, when he sees a picture of the dog they rescued grinning a happy, doggy grin at the camera, sprawled out in a strange upside-down stretch. There's more flesh on her bones, and even her coat seems glossier in the picture. Steve doesn't say anything. Emma's eyes twinkle with the fiery light of do-good mischief.

As the night wears on they migrate over to the jukebox and talk (two boys, eleven and seven, inherited the practice from her uncle, deadbeat ex-husband kept a mistress in Omaha for two years before she caught on, is what Steve learns about Dr. Tiedmann), drinking not to drink, rather, drinking as an occupation for their hands as they chat. Around the time they hit their third beers Steve discovers the collection of Sinatra and old swing classics on the jukebox as Sam and Rick talk excitedly back and forth about bathroom tile colors and the feasibility of heated concrete floors; by Sam's fourth beer they're arguing about whether or not it's too late to plant beans and carrots and Steve's fed quarters into the machine to hear Ain't Misbehavin', the Fats Walter version, not the Hank Williams version, whoever that is. 

They drop Rick back off at his house at a quarter to eleven. That night in the trailer Steve can't sleep again, but finds he prefers the comfortable, excited buzz in his brain rather than the hollow reverb of memories pushing hot and fast at the backs of his eyes. 

 

~**~

 

Working in the house goes so seamless and easy that it's jarring and unpleasant when, suddenly, it doesn't.

"Did your cousin at the water company happen to get the house back on the public line?" Steve asks Rick over the phone one morning.

"He might've, yeah," says Rick. "Why?"

"I'm watching Old Faithful erupt in the basement," Steve says, and hears Rick curse colorfully across the line.

The culprit, it turns out, is a combination of old pipes and the freeze and thaw of Nebraska's winters slowly corroding the metal away. Collectively Steve, Sam, and Rick all conclude that this one is a little bit above their pay grade, and step aside for the professionals, calling in the local plumbers who disappear into the basement with vacuum hoses and waders to attempt and stem the tide.

"You sure there's nothing I can do to help right now?" Steve asks the foreman, going over the intricate details of old pipes and the myriad problems they can present in sub-level basements. 

"Yeah, you can get out of the way and let us take care of the problem," the plumber says, clapping him on the shoulder in well-meaning camaraderie. "Sit back and relax, Mr. Robertson, we'll get this taken care of and be out of your hair soon." 

Try as he might, Steve can't sit back and relax. He hasn't realized how invested he's become in this house until he can't actually work in it. They call it an early day and go back to the Cohns' to shower. It's a fine spring day, big sky taken over by drifting white clouds, and fresh breezy gusts that rattle the windchimes. Inside, Rick and Zelda are making sandwiches.

"The house is going to be fine," Sam says, watching Steve walk restlessly up and down the porch. "You're not going to give yourself a complex over working on this, are you?"

"Me? No," Steve says. 

"Good, because I've seen you with a complex, and that wasn't fun for either of us." 

"That wasn't a complex," Steve says, maybe a little too quickly. Sam looks at him skeptically. "...okay, maybe a little toward the end, there," he concedes. 

Those last two months on the road, in Steve's defense, would have given anyone a complex. Unhelpfully, every single lead they got on the Winter Soldier proved to be dead and buried.  
After so much unbelievable, explosive, wanton destruction in Washington DC, Steve thought it would be easy to track him, find him and then - well, his vague idea for phase three of that plan amounted to _bring him home_ , but it was like trying to catch smoke with a net in the dark. While blindfolded.

Steve remembers losing his temper rather abruptly in Miami, breaking into a safehouse used by members of a counterfeiting ring reputed to have old, old ties to HYDRA. Sweeping the first and second floors revealed nothing but dust and empty boxes; in the basement there were only pallets dragged together to form a rudimentary bed. No papers or info, not even a lackey he could shake up for information. It had been his last lead. 

Steve broke his hand punching the reinforced concrete wall in the sub-basement; his cry in the quiet house brought Sam running downstairs with pistol at the ready, and he couldn't look his friend in the eye as he cradled his cracked knuckles.

It was not Captain America's proudest moment. 

Sam clears his throat, drawing Steve back to the present. His fists have clenched at his sides. Exhaling very slowly, he tries to wind himself back down as Sam says, "I think you're kind of missing the point of this whole making yourself happy thing if letting a pro working on the pipes is going to mess you up like this. And let me tell you, I've invested too much time and effort to have you get stupid about something like this. You're on sabbatical. You're not hunting for something any more. You don't have to do everything, and I don't think you realize that, Steve."

Steve doesn't know how to answer that.

After lunch the Cohns very politely kick Sam and Steve out to take an afternoon nap, and the house is still a no-go - Steve knows he'd probably just get more pissed off not being able to do anything - so the two of them end up taking a field trip to Omaha, Sam googling directions to warehouses and showrooms to look at countertops and flooring. 

On the forty-five minute drive Steve zones out staring at the growing corn in the fields surrounding the freeway, remembering the front door in Miami he'd broken the padlocks on, and thinking offhandedly that he'd have to hunt for a front door and locks that could hold up even just a little better than that did. 

When they're pulling into a Home Depot parking lot, Sam glances at him, then back down, and said, "Hey man - sorry about what I said earlier."

"What about it?" Steve asks, mild.

"You know what I said, it was unfair of me." Sam coughs, uncomfortable. "I know where you're coming from and maybe it's a little much of me to expect you to just let things go like that."

Steve feels the column of tension in his spine release. "Thanks, Sam." 

In the Home Depot, they snipe back and forth over flooring options, laminates versus cork versus hardwood, and Sam's mood lifts considerably as he flirts shamelessly with the girl with glossy black ringlets in the bright orange apron as she tries to convince him of the merits of sustainable bamboo flooring. 

"You should've gotten her number," Steve admonishes him, back in the parking lot. 

A sly expression passes across Sam's face, but doesn't stay for long. "She was cute, wasn't she? But nah, man, Nebraska's just a little too long distance for me, even if she is a hard-hitting eco-warrior in disguise. What about you?" he asks, as they climb into the truck, warm in the afternoon sun. 

Steve cracks the windows open. "What about me?"

"Find yourself some small-town corn-fed beauty, get their number, go on dates to the rodeo, win couples' corn-shucking contests. Bonus points if they know how to wield a sledgehammer and deal with leaky pipes."

The tragedy of Steve's short-lived will-they-won't-they romance with Peggy Carter is the stuff of legend, part of the Captain America mythos, like his extraordinary partnership with Howard Stark. It hurts badly enough thinking about her, but that's only half the issue. 

Sam's the only person Steve's trusted enough to tell about his other heartache, the one which he's nurtured longer and had fester deeper. It came out - well, Steve guesses _he_ came out - on the road to British Columbia during their six-month manhunt. In layman's terms, Steve Rogers has been in love with his best friend for his entire life. Steve Rogers is still in love with a ghost. 

"You know I can't do that, Sam," he says quietly. Sam sobers up. 

"No," he agrees. "No, probably not."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wherein Steve ruminates, Tony offers some costly tech support, and there is progress on the house, sugar, and other helpfully healing things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one isn't quite as long as the first chapter, but it is a transition to some bigger and better stuff.  
> My eternal thanks and gratitude go to fig_eater for talking me out of the existential crisis this fic is causing me, to everyone who's taken the time to leave kudos and wonderful comments, and to you for reading.

It takes two days and more money than Steve wants to think about to fix the plumbing in the house, but when all is said and done, his basement is no longer flooding and he has assurance from all parties involved that he'll be able to safely shower in his own home when he gets the new bath fixtures installed. He is, at the very least, able to brush his teeth in water that's not brown with rust and dirt, which is a small blessing. His standards may have risen a _little_ since the War.

The work goes quickly, especially when Rick is able to sneak away from business long enough to help. Showers and dinner at the Cohns' become an unofficial ritual most nights, when Zelda's not out with her bowling league, and Steve starts recognizing the towns' residents whenever he's out getting groceries or buying hardware, or doing laundry in his workout clothes at the Dollar Wash'N'Dry. 

They nod at him, smiling, and he nods at them, smiling. It felt a little strange the first time, Steve thinks, because it's completely, utterly, diametrically opposed to how things are done in Brooklyn. 

Sam still makes cracks about the Twilight Zone, but they're maybe a little gentler, less pointed. 

Dr. Emma Tiedmann somehow wrangles his cell phone number from Zelda, and sends him pictures of the dog every few days, which is not helpful. 

Eventually, Sam has to leave. He waits until dry-rotted beams are replaced and every room has new drywall, but Steve is well aware that he's had a monopoly on Sam's time for far too long, and there are people at the VA who need his no-nonsense approach to managing their baggage more than Steve needs his help with choosing paint colors.

"You gonna be okay?" Sam asks, at the curbside drop-off at Eppley. Steve pulls his duffel bags out of the back of the truck. 

"Yeah, I'll be fine," says Steve. "I'm a big boy. I don't think I'll die of isolation and loneliness if Rick and Zelda can help it." 

"That's not what I meant. You sure you don't need me to stick around for the heavy lifting? Man of your age shouldn't be moving appliances by himself."

"Oh, I think I can manage, I have Life Alert," Steve says, grinning. He pulls Sam into a one-armed hug. "Get home safe, Sam. Tell that cute girl at the VA's front desk hi for me."

"Only if you tell the cute girl at the Home Depot hi for me," Sam shoots back, giving Steve a friendly nudge with his elbow. "Which reminds me, I have a suggestion for the living room." He digs in his jacket pocket and pulls out a paint chip, a pretty, slaty light blue color.

"It's nice," Steve says, until he flips the little chip over and sees the color name is Colonial Blue. "Hilarious."

"Lady Liberty seemed a little too light for your color palette," Sam says, in that utterly sincere way that means he's laughing at Steve. "And I don't know how you feel about neutrals so Freedom Trail and American White were out." 

Steve knocks into Sam with his shoulder. "Go catch your flight, funnyman. Let me know how DC is holding up without me." 

"Yes, sir," Sam says, slinging one bag over his shoulder, hefting the other up into one arm. as he's walking away he turns just long enough to say, "Just give me a call if you need anything, Steve. I'm serious."

"You'll be the first to know if I do," Steve says honestly, shooting him an ironic little salute, which makes Sam chuckle as he disappears into the airport. 

 

Admittedly, Steve doesn't realize just how heavily he's been leaning on his friend until he pulls into the driveway of his house and suddenly the excitement of his own place burns off into loneliness in record-shattering time. Drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, he looks into the blank dark windows, and can't bring himself to go inside quite yet.

So instead he pulls out his phone, thinks about texting Stark or Natasha, and instead texts Emma Tiedmann. _Feel like having a beer?_

Her reply comes quick and he can read her pronounced, earthy sarcasm in the text. _What's the occasion?_  
  _Not having to put any family pets down today, hopefully,_ he responds, and laughs out loud when she texts back, _Let me change, we're going to the dive bar but even Big Al himself won't let me in while I'm covered in terrier puke._

It reminds him forcefully of Neighbor, Agent Thirteen, flirting with him over infectious disease unit scrubs what could be a whole other lifetime ago. He drives to the little strip mall next to the hardware store, where Big Al's flickering neon sign buzzes audibly as he steps out of the truck. It's still early enough that the heat of the day hits him, but in the background, over the traffic on the interstate, he can hear the night insects beginning to drone. 

Big Al's smells of beer and stale cigarette smoke; it's louder than Poor Boy's was but the music is more modern, and there's a small group of people at the bar watching a baseball game and alternately booing and making a wild ruckus of celebration. 

Steve orders a beer for himself and Dr. Tiedmann, very much doubting that they carry wine at this particular establishment. It's not long before she walks through the door and spots him at the bar; Steve is usually the tallest person in the room, even when he's trying to forget the fact that he is. 

"Where's your friend?" The vet pulls out a bar stool next to him and plonks herself on it.  
"Sam left this afternoon, flew back to DC," Steve says, sipping his beer and trying not to grimace. It's one thing to drink cheap beer when you want to get drunk; Steve's inability to do so really gives him no excuse to drink this swill. 

"That where you're from, originally?" she asks, making polite conversation as they sip their Buds. 

"I moved there for work," Steve replies. "I'm from Brooklyn, originally. Thought I was going to stay there forever. Life had other plans." 

Emma nods. She looks a little end-of-the-day frazzled, and has swapped out her cat earrings for sterling silver paw prints. "I went to New York one time for a wedding, my cousin's. I don't know how you could live there - it's so _loud_." 

"And I could say that Nebraska's too quiet," Steve says. Emma raises her eyebrows, in an expression that he's seen Tony describe as _challenge accepted._

"You'll be here for college football season," she declares. "You will see just how quiet Nebraska is _not_." 

"Doctor, with all due respect, have you ever been to a Knicks game?" Steve says. The Dodgers are really his only point of reference, but between the two of them Steve's the only one who's been to a Brooklyn home game. "Or anywhere in the vicinity of New York when it's playoffs season?" Captain America has fought Nazis and punched Adolf Hitler in the face, but the moment when he most feared for his life was when Tony Stark invited him to his executive box in Madison Square Garden during playoffs season. 

Bantering back and forth with Emma Tiedmann is easy and fun. They both order another round, Steve still feeling nothing but his self-respect wilting as he drinks the awful beer, and the talk turns from sports to weather which is, shockingly, not awkward. Dr. Tiedmann gleefully informs him of all the treats in store for him during tornado season ("Finish your basement ASAP, buy the biggest jar of peanut butter you can find to keep down there, and always buy more water than you think you'll need"), and they start chatting about summer rapidly approaching, the swimming lessons she's coercing her seven year old to take. 

"Caleb hates the pool, no idea why," she says, shrugging. "He's fine at the lake with the dogs, but the second we're at the municipal pool, he only dips his feet in. Refuses to go any deeper."

Steve ponders that. "Maybe because he doesn't feel safe without the dogs?" he offers. 

Emma makes a noncommittal noise into her beer. "Coooullld be," she drawls. "Speaking of -"

"Oh no," Steve says.

"Guess who's walking and getting into all sorts of trouble now?" Emma says, whipping out her phone. 

There is a video of the little shepherd mix dragging her bowl all over the recovery room floor, tipping it this way and that, spilling her food before she eats it. She's barely recognizable as the matted, skeletal stray with the mangled leg Steve picked up from the side of the road. One ear flops, the other stands; otherwise Steve wouldn't even know she's the same dog. When the video's over, Emma looks up at Steve like, _Well_?

"She's really cute," Steve says cautiously.

"She's a love," Emma says immediately. 

Steve cups his chin in one hand, sighing. "I'm getting the feeling you're not going to let me live quietly until I say yes to adopting her." 

"You were the one talking all sorts of bull about Nebraska being too quiet," Emma says, eyes twinkling. "Figured I might as well change your perception of that real quick."

 

~**~

 

Yes, it's a lot quieter without Sam in the house, but as much as Steve loved having his buddy's presence at his side, as much as he enjoyed the heck out of having another brain to bounce thoughts and ideas off of, he's enjoying the relative silence of working in the house alone.

You'd think that after so many years of silence, being surrounded by people in a strange new world but feeling so alone because you're not sure they're even _hearing_ you, spending time alone with thoughts would be tiring at best, massively depressing at worst.

It sort of is, but Steve works through it. 

He thinks a lot about the people he knew while he's working on the house. He thinks a lot about how funny life is. If it weren't for the SSR and every twist of fate that's brought him here, he probably wouldn't be able to work on the house to begin with. Drywall dust and exhaustive demolition and hammering - not so good for asthma and scoliosis.

Peggy's on his mind when he lays down plywood and a vapor barrier on the less creaky, less-rotted kitchen floor, but Peggy's usually on his mind. He wonders what she'd think of him now, living in a borrowed camper trailer and tracking dust everywhere. 

He thinks about Bucky, but he's _always_ thinking about Bucky. 

Still, he can text Sam or any one of the Avengers, and he'll always feel a little less lonely after that. Sam keeps him informed on what's going on at the VA, he replies with Dr. Tiedmann's latest schemes to get him to adopt the pup. Eating at the diner one night he texts Natasha a photo of his sandwich, held together with a little American flag toothpick, and she responds with a self-portrait of her making a very unimpressed face. 

On a Friday night he makes the mistake of calling the Tower to check in on everyone, and interrupts what must be a very raucous party. 

"Captain Midwest!" Tony says, talking a mile a minute the way he does when he's both drunk and onto something. "Sam says you've gone native! You haven't gone native have you, Cap?"  
In the background he hears Clint immediately gripe about Nebraska, and corn, and Huskers. Jarvis must have him on speaker, so the entire group can hear him.

"Hey, guys," he says, knowing better than to rise to Tony's bait by now, and figuring it's better to not engage a native Iowan on Midwest matters. "You haven't broken New York while I've been gone, have you?"

"Depends on your definition of broken," Doctor Banner says, dry as anything. "Does that include collateral damage when we're trying to save it?" 

"I thought that was covered in our insurance plan," Steve says, and is pleasantly surprised to hear Bruce make a noise that he realizes is a huff of laughter.

"How's Nebraska, Cap?" Natasha asks, before Clint can interrupt with something rude. 

But Tony beats Clint to the punch. "You've been gone a month, over a month, and we barely hear from you - is there a problem with your phone? There shouldn't be a problem with his phone. JARVIS, run remote diagnostics on the good Captain's phone."

"Tony - Tony that's not necess-"

"Yes, it's absolutely necess, shh just come and let me throw expensive tech support at you." Steve knows Tony well enough at this point to know the little imperious gesture Tony is probably making to the room at large right now, with a glass of very expensive booze in hand.

"Well, thank you," Steve says, because he is nothing if not polite. "And Nebraska is fine, Natasha. Thank you for asking."

"I talked to Hill the other day," she says conversationally, before adding, "Stark, if you interrupt me again, please know that inebriated though I may be right now, I can still kill you five ways with my pinky finger alone."

"Did I look like I was going to interrupt?" Tony asks, affronted. "Cap, do you hear her threatening me? She is being a liability to team unity and camaraderie and friendship and, and. Any one of those other things you stand for. "

Steve laughs. "I'd be more inclined to take your side, Tony, if I didn't actually know you."

Tony makes an outraged noise as Natasha clears her throat, sounding rather more annoyed than she did thirty seconds ago. "Hill, Steve. I was talking to Hill. She's considering working with the Avengers on an advisory basis, so that gives us an exact total of one handler and logistics manager, and one is better than none. You might be up to bat again soon, if you want."

Cautiously, Steve considers this. "You know I'm always going to be in your guys' corner, if you need me," he begins.

"But you want to stay out there cow-tipping." Steve hears the fond smile in her voice. "I'm glad."

At that moment Tony must get the data report back from Jarvis, because he makes a strangled noise. "Cap, Cap, how are you even SURVIVING out there?! It's abysmal! You're in the deadest of dead zones, your zone could literally not get any deader -"

"Everything works fine," Steve manages, as Tony rambles on, "Let me do you a favor, god, this is painful to look at, JARVIS, talk to Data Management and see if we can move that one satellite directly over Cap's coordinates - yeah, from the border directly north -"

"You are not moving a satellite so I can load videos on my phone faster!"

"Fine, touchy, at least let me set up the network in your house, it will take me literally five minutes and you'd be able to get a signal probably all the way across town -" Tony abruptly stops talking and there is a loud thump, which Steve knows from experience is the sound of a Stark crumpling, very expensively, to the floor.

"I hope you didn't make him spill his drink," Steve admonishes.

Natasha makes an obnoxiously loud slurping noise in response. "Nah, I took it off of him first. Not my favorite but no point in letting it go to waste. I've still got your stuff in storage," she says. "Let me know when you want me to drive it out." 

"I'll try to have an actual functioning bathroom and bedroom for you to sleep in by then," Steve says, smiling. "But I'm fine, Tasha. You don't need to worry about me. I need some time to clear my head, but that's it. I'll be fine without someone holding my hand for a couple of weeks."

Sipping her appropriated drink, Natasha says, "I'm not worried about you, and what makes you think I need to sleep?" 

Steve is still laughing when he hangs up, and for a bright moment, the loneliness is gone.

 

~**~

 

A few days later, Steve is up before dawn, rubbing at his face in the hollow light of the kitchen and turning on sink. He splashes water into his face, but it doesn't do anything aside from make him wet, doesn't bring the clarity he hoped it would. 

He'd slept the previous night, he really did, was prepared to swear on the Bible and everything, except sometime around 3.30 in the morning he'd woken, sweating and gasping, from a dream about sunlight on bright metal and darkness in familiar eyes, and couldn't make himself fall asleep after that.

In the cramped trailer bed, he rubbed his eyes. He thought he'd been getting better about that particular nightmare. It's starting to beat the one about planes crashing and cold so bitter he thinks he might never be warm again. 

Instead of trying to sleep, he comes inside the house for a glass of water, turns on all the lights, and wanders in and out of the rooms wearing only his sweat pants and his memories. The entire place smells of warm timber, the floors creak underneath his feet as if in greeting. 

The house is starting to fill out. It's almost as if the silent walls have remembered they have a spark of life under his hands, and Steve's read the posts online about how Captain America brings out the best in people both in wartime and in peace, but this is the first time that he's able to see how something comes alive when he wants it to. 

In this, he can kind of understand Tony's weird thing for robots, but that doesn't mean he's going to install an invisible butler in this house. 

Steve brushes his teeth and finds something to keep himself busy. 

Hours later, when the sun has risen and he can hear birds in the cottonwood outside the kitchen window, he hears a knock on the old door. He opens it and finds Zelda on his porch.

"Morning, ma'am." 

"Oh, Grant," she says, looking at him - he knows he's a little bit of a mess, from lack of sleep and from the thoughts he can't shake. "Hard night?" 

Steve rubs the back of his neck. "You could say that. It's nothing I can't handle," he adds in a hurry when her round face creases in a frown. 

"That doesn't mean you have to handle it alone," she says. Steve keeps forgetting she's a certified therapist, her care and concern are natural, not affectations. He feels a rush of gratitude that she and Rick are his neighbors, his friends. "I just wanted to drop by and see if you were awake. I've got some plants I thought you might like." 

"Ma'am?"

"My garden's a bit too prolific this year and I have no self-control at the nursery," she admits, smiling a _fool me_ smile. She's shown Steve and Sam her garden during lazy dusks after dinner, the rows of tender young tomatoes and pepper plants standing orderly next to the summer squashes already starting to tangle and sprawl. "It's not as if you don't have enough to do already, so I thought I might give you some," she teases. 

"Zelda, I couldn't possibly," Steve begins, but she shushes him and thrusts a plastic pony-pack of tomatoes into his face.

Steve doesn't need anything more to do, but he does love homegrown tomatoes. 

The next morning, he opens the door to find a chocolate mousse cake on the porch, wrapped in a bombproof dome of tinfoil, with a note attached in Zelda's loopy handwriting: _Sugar makes a man less lonesome, but Rick and I will still be here when you finish the cake._

 

~**~

 

"I did a bad thing," Steve says when Sam picks up the phone. 

"How bad is bad? Supervillainy bad? Tony Stark with three supermodels bad? HYDRA bad? You gotta give me more than that, Cap." 

Steve looks down at the adoption papers, where _Grant Robertson_ is signed neatly at the bottom next to the date. 

Then he looks down at the leash wrapped around his wrist. 

"A really bad thing," he says. "In my defense, I was worn down slowly, under a very refined and effective torturer." 

It takes a moment for it to click, then Sam says, "God it, I knew it- !"

The little shepherd mix looks up at Steve from where she'd been sniffing his shoes. 

Steve has never been a pet person, per se. Before the war broke out he and Bucky couldn't even fit another body in their closet-sized apartment let alone afford to keep one; cat dander made Steve cough, and he simply didn't have the energy to keep up with the stray dogs that Bucky tossed whatever scraps they could spare at.

After the serum, being a dancing pet monkey for the war effort meant he simply didn't have the time. 

Now, roughhousing with his dog in the front yard, watching her do the I-am-getting-food dance as he measures out fancy kibble for her twice a day ("She's going to eat better than I do," he'd groused to Emma, paying for a bag of duck and sweet potato dog food at the vet's office)...well, he didn't want to admit that maybe, just maybe, this was a piece of the puzzle missing from his life before. 

He's just a little worried that he doesn't know what to name her.

"Peggy," Tony says, next time Steve calls the Avengers. 

"No, this is Steve, I think you might not have much luck reaching Agent Carter at this point." 

"No, for your mutt, asshole," Tony says. Steve can here the clink of ice in a glass as Tony talks. He doesn't know if he just has the knack for calling when Tony's drinking, or if Tony's just _always_ drinking. 

Steve looks at the dog, currently gamboling on his front lawn. She doesn't quite get the point of Fetch yet. "I'm kind of insulted on Peggy's behalf," he says. 

Clint says, "Liberty," and Sam's suggestion is, " _Lady_ Liberty." 

Natasha's suggestion is simply, "Lady." 

"Marie," is Bruce's suggestion, which is a nice name, but maybe a bit too refined for a dog which likes to sprawl and wriggle around on the lawn with her legs splayed like a Thanksgiving turkey.

"I DO NOT PROFESS TO KNOW WHAT THE MIDGARDIAN ANIMAL NAMING PRACTICES ENTAIL," Thor booms into the phone, "BUT I AM TOLD 'LUCKY' IS A FITTING NAME FOR ANY CANINE COMPANION AND FRIEND. I WISH YOU MANY HAPPY YEARS AT EACH OTHERS' SIDES."

"Thanks Thor," Steve says earnestly. Under all the advanced alien weirdness, Thor is, at heart, an incredibly thoughtful person. 

After hearing the circumstances that brought them together, Rick takes one look at the dog and says, "Lucky." Steve groans inwardly. 

"She's not a Princess," Zelda muses, looking at the dog, currently licking at her own paws like they're coated in peanut butter. "And she's not a Duchess. How about Star?" Which is a good suggestion, really, but Steve's on sabbatical and there is a huge star right in the middle of his shield he'd be reminded of, so he just shrugs politely. 

"Emma," is Dr. Tiedmann's input on Friday night, grinning at him above her beer bottle. She and Steve lean on the jukebox at Poor Boy's. Steve is trying Very Hard not to worry about leaving the dog alone in her kennel for an extended period of time. 

"Don't worry," she says, knocking back the rest of her drink. "Better to wait and find the right name than name her something that's just not _her_." 

He and Emma dance around the bar's wooden floor, very politely, to Ain't Misbehavin, before she insists on feeding more quarters into the machine so she can dance to Elvis Presley's Hound Dog.

 

~**~

 

Two weeks later the walls are up, textured, and ready for paint; there is a standing order with a tile and trim showroom in Omaha for the upstairs bath - classic black and white squares on the floor, white subway tile on the walls, and nary a single square inch of pink to be seen. 

The vague mental images he's had for the past few weeks are solidifying into something tangibly his. Sometimes, while eating lunch or at night while the dog is snuffling away in her kennel, he sketches walls and tries to render chrome fixtures in graphite pencil. He's had a lot of ideas for how it should all look when it's done, and he's not an interior designer, but it's starting to look - well, nice. Like a home should. 

Initially there were some reservations about nudging the house slowly toward completion while simultaneously taking care of a dog and balancing his very busy small-town social life (read as: having dinner and watching HGTV with Rick and Zelda). What Steve is surprised to find is just how easy balancing these different aspects of his life is. They gel together without him even thinking about it, let alone trying. 

There's still a lot to do, but Steve knew what he'd be getting into with a project house. The porch is in dire need of maintenance, the basement needs to be finished, there is a detached garage that's little more than a crumbling heap of tin siding, and there are still the tomato plants Zelda gave him to get in the ground. 

If it doesn't get too late in the season before he can get around to it, he thinks he might want a full garden - runner beans, bell peppers, sugary baby watermelons, spicy-sweet Anaheim chiles - the sorts of things he could never grow on a fire escape in Brooklyn, the things he has room and time for now that he's thousands of miles away from DC.

But first things first: The house has to at least be inhabitable before he can tackle any more projects. 

It's mid-June and the season is slowly swelling around him. The Nebraska sky is open and vast. When the sun sets there are shades of colors Steve's never seen before in the wide drifts of clouds. He wants to capture them in paint and pastel, and the thought sends a little thrill through him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone is interested in seeing what Cute Dog looks like, this cute puppin's a close match:  
> http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/236x/18/ff/e2/18ffe203331edb5ac7fe3abdef0ba875.jpg  
> (Remember, if you're thinking about bringing a furbaby into your life, think about what Captain America would do: Consider adopting a homeless pet!) 
> 
> I'm slowly cultivating a pinterest board for the more visual aspects of this work, and I'll probably link to it with the next update. The next chapter should be up in a few days. Thanks for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Slugs, a birthday, a visit, a microwave, and a cliffhanger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (I'M SO SORRY)
> 
> (NO I'M NOT)

Steve kind of hates that Colonial Blue looks as good in his living room as it does. He buys a sample and paints a neat square blotch on the primed wall, then goes back and buys a bucket of it. He's just getting into the groove of taping off the borders and outlets when the dog begins whining and scratching at the screen door.

"What?" He stops, turns and looks at her. She gazes balefully at him through the torn screen - In his lifetime Steve's been on the receiving end of some pretty pitiful puppy eyes courtesy of the exemplary James Buchanan Barnes, but his new girl takes the cake, even if she does tend to slobber and shed more than Bucky did. 

Her eyes are huge and caramel-brown and are utterly intent on destroying him.

The thing is, she's never done this before. With the exception of short attention span when it comes to new people and squirrels and a propensity for tail-chasing, she stays where she's put. The first day he let her spend outside of her kennel without constant supervision, he was aware he had turned into a helicopter parent, checking on her through the window or door every three minutes. For the most part, she licked herself and napped under the cottonwood tree.

Now, the intensity of her sad, sad, sad gaze grows. Steve feels himself break. 

He opens the screen door and mutters to his little girl, "You drive the hardest bargain I have ever seen in my entire life," and it's the truth. He's worked with diplomats and peacemakers and SHIELD, and none of them hold a candle to a nameless mutt he's picked up in Nebraska.

She lays down on a pile of spare tarps and falls asleep for all of five minutes, just long enough for him to begin painting without him noticing that he hears the click of nails on plywood -

He turns and there is a very neat trail of Colonial Blue paw prints trailed from the paint roller tray into the kitchen; Steve makes a startled noise and goes for her, trying in vain to keep her from shooting up the stairs -

Except she does, because when Papa is lunging for her, it's play time; she yips in excitement and dodges him, leaving blue splotches all over the kitchen. "No, no no no no no no -" Steve begins when he gets a hand on her collar, but it's too late, the plywood and vapor barrier are a mess of blue paw prints and he's got an armful of mutt who's wagging her tail ecstatically. 

_Okay, papa, you've caught me!_ She seems to be saying, wiggling happily when Steve lifts her bodily, smearing paint all over his shirt and sweats when he's carrying her over to the sink.

"Aww, little girl, why'd you gotta do this?" In response, she wags her tail so happily it looks like her hindquarters might lift off, and Steve had never seen a look so filled with love and happiness and trust leveled at him since - since...

He thinks of Bucky throwing whatever food they could spare to stray dogs, remembers holding hands in the dark small hours when they should have both been asleep, each of them left to their own private resignations about the declaration of war. 

Steve remembers kisses pressed to the small of his back when he was feverish and small and shivering, remembers pressing kisses to a clammy forehead in a chilly forest in Europe, thinks of all their old songs he's tried to shut away as they come spilling out in a flood of music and melancholy, thinks of dancing to a scratchy record of Ain't Misbehavin' in a hot cramped apartment with someone he loved. 

He buries his face into his dog's furry neck, letting the tears flow hot and thick and unstoppered like he's never let them before. A wrecked sob escapes his throat before he can swallow it back down and he wants to laugh hysterically even as he feels every raw emotion he's shoved down come exploding out like someone's popped champagne. His face hurts, his eyes hurt, his heart hurts, everything _hurts_ , and there's nothing he can do to stop it. It's like he's held hostage in his body by his emotions, he has to sit and feel his heart wrench until they all drain out.

He only stops when his sweet little pup starts licking the tears from his face, tail wagging happily, and he kisses her furry forehead and mumbles, laughing and crying as her tongue catches on his nose, "Missy, Missy, my good little misbehaving girl."

Blue paint dries on her paws but the way she licks the tears off his face makes him feel like it's okay, it's okay, it's okay.

 

~**~

 

Blue paw prints notwithstanding, the house seems to come together quickly after he paints, as if the walls were waiting for color and his own kick of personality before everything really gelled, like a painting or sketch coming together after he adds a single simple line or shade. 

He paints the living room accent wall the slaty light blue, sending Sam a picture message with no commentary attached. The other walls receive coats of a pure, neutral cream, easy enough to match to his oak furniture set still moldering away in storage in DC. 

Missy doesn't step into any more paint trays, but she does stick her face into whatever he's got his hands into, cheering him up with her happy expensive kibble dance, and keeping him on his toes on walks. She puts just enough slack in the leash to lull him into a false sense of security, then darts off without warning or provocation for the sheer joy of running.

The leg that had been mangled by the car still gives her some trouble, and her farts are terrible. Steve loves her to distraction. He sends Sam, Natasha, even Tony more picture messages of her doing ridiculously cute doggy things than he should.

"I'm not going to say I told you so," says Emma, when Steve brings Missy in for a round of shots and a checkup on Missy's leg, making sure the metal pins holding the bone together are setting correctly.

"No, by all means rub it in my face. You're hardly the first smart-mouth I've had the honor of befriending, so I'm used to it," Steve says, holding a wriggling Missy on the table with the lure of biscuits. 

Emma looks up from Missy's leg to him, and there's something a little unreadable behind her professional It Is Veterinary Medicine Time face. "No? I'd like to make friends with all of these people who can tell you I Told You So. We can make it into an anthem. We'll have a little club."

Sam, while not the president or founder of the Steve Rogers I Told You So Club, is a charter member. He texts Steve whenever he has the time, and on the bright and humid morning in late June when he texts asking simply, _Are you happy?_ Steve puts down the tub of grout and tiles he's occupied with in the upstairs bathroom, and has to consider before he answers

_I think I'm getting there._

 

~**~

 

There are close calls, of course. Steve's not so complacent in Nebraska that he forgets to watch his back, cover his trails. 

One night he and Missy are over at Rick and Zelda's; three people gathered around the television in the living room and watching news channel footage of what appear to be giant slugs oozing over New York. Missy chases the sprinklers in the garden, occasionally yelping and shaking when she gets squirted for moving too slow.

Steve's not as concerned about it as he should be. Watching the scrolling text at the bottom of the screen - **AVENGERS CALLED IN FOR FIRST BATTLE SINCE INVASION OF NEW YORK** \- and thinks about the field day the team must be having over the comms. Onscreen, Iron Man is throwing decidedly more loop-the-loops and fancy maneuvers into fighting than he usually would. 

Work must be slow if Tony's hamming it up and Clint is breaking out the Super Mega Ultra Explosion arrows over giant slugs.

"Strange world we live in," Rick says dryly, as the live footage shows Hulk gripping a slug's slippery hind end, keeping it from oozing into an intersection where civilians are taking pictures and gawking like morons. 

The camera angle switches to Thor hurtling down toward what looks like a banana slug on steroids with Mjolnir, before bouncing off of the slug's shiny skin. "Sure is," Steve agrees. "Only on a Monday," he adds. He remembers working with the team that evil had a tendency of striking on Mondays. He still doesn't know if it's a mandated Evil Thing, or if that's just how the universe at large operates.

Zelda's looking at the TV strangely. "Wasn't there the other one? Captain America -"  
Steve almost chokes on his sweet tea.  
" - my brother had all of his comic books, I stole them when I was a teenager because I thought he was a dish," Zelda says, grinning. "I thought it was a hoax when the news said he was still alive, but then back when the Invasion happened -"

"Might still be a hoax," Rick comments, "seeing as he's not there now." 

Choking a little, Steve is aware he is turning very, very red. Zelda looks at him strangely. "Everything okay, Grant dear?" 

"Yes ma'am," Steve said, willing himself to play it cool. Bucky and Peggy commented on how he couldn't lie; now he's got the likes of Clint and Natasha bemoaning his nonexistent poker face.  
Rick and Zelda are both fixing him with very skeptical looks. "I think a bug flew into my tea," he offers as an explanation, and fakes a cough for good measure.

"At least it's not a slug," Rick chuckles, as on-screen an arrow is embedded between a slug's cell tower-like antennae and explodes, showering the surrounding block with ooze. 

That night he texts Natasha: _Couple of bags of salt would have worked just as well._

Her reply is quick and clipped, her annoyance rolling off of it in waves: _When you've been stuck in Stark's tower without play time for as long as we have, you learn to take whatever action you can get._

 _Thought the dry spells were reserved for me,_ Steve texts back wryly.

 _God damn it I'm going to go shower now because I am covered in mucus and Captain America made a sex joke,_ Natasha texts back. 

It's not giant slugs, disgruntled HYDRA agents, or even space aliens that make him a little leery, it's small-town America residents who are maybe a little too canny for their own good. After that Steve takes special care to be as unlike as Captain America as he can - he contemplates even growing out a beard, if he didn't know the special sort of itchy hell that growing a prickly beard in the summer is. 

Even so, he's careful not to talk about current events, superheroes, or comic book nostalgia with Zelda, because even though she's one of the sweetest ladies he's ever met, she is also sharp as a tack and has years of training in psychotherapy. 

He really hopes she still doesn't think Captain America is a "dish."

 

~**~

 

June barrels with fresh energy into July. The humidity spikes and the temperatures skyrocket - too late, Steve realizes that the heating and air system need updating, so briefly he becomes nocturnal, working on the house during the cool hours of the night and trying to sleep through the hot afternoons in the trailer until the air conditioning techs come install a new energy-efficient StarkHome cooling unit. 

He keeps working, breaking only for meals and to throw the tennis ball for Missy, until one day he goes to the store for ice and realizes the Fourth of July is a week away, and he has no idea what he's going to do.

"Rick didn't tell you?" Zelda says over shrimp scampi later that night. "My nephew's playing minor league for Omaha, they're having a game with fireworks that night and all sorts of events that afternoon, usually they turn it into sort of an all-day cookout and festival, and we got tickets. You're coming with us," she says, her tone booking no argument. 

"Zelda, poor Grant might have other plans -"

"No, I don't," Steve says honestly. "I'd love to go, thank you so much."

He doesn't tell them it's his birthday, partially because he doesn't want them to make a fuss, and mostly because he's aware that having his birthday on the Fourth of July is a really Captain America thing to do. 

So he takes a Friday night off from working on the house, trying to corral Missy into the truck for her second not-quite maiden car trip experience. She's rather more animated this time around, and on more than one occasion sticks her nose up to sniff and lick Steve's ear from the backseat. 

But she doesn't attempt to jump to the front and stays where Steve put her. He reaches back and tries to pet her whenever they're at a stop, and she licks his hand happily so he has to wipe it on his jeans before taking the wheel again. 

Rick and Zelda have bleacher seats, but the ballpark is packed by the time Steve gets to Omaha and finds parking, so Steve sends them a text - _sorry, I'll catch up with you after the game!_ \- and finds a vacant patch of grass for him and Missy to sit on in the lawn area past the outfield.

The heat of day is fading slowly; the grass smells green and warm and alive when he sits, laden with bottles of a water and hot dogs for him and Missy (Dr. Tiedmann had told him, very sternly, that there was to be no People Food for Missy - Steve justifies letting her eat the whole thing, bun and all, with it being a special occasion and all). 

He sips his water and eats his hot dogs at the beginning of the game, Missy straining at the end of her leash in her attempts to play with nearby kids and other dogs on leashes. 

Halfway through the game the sky has deepened into rich shades of orange and purple, and the floodlights have to be turned on, flooding the field in bright white. The game is great, baseball as Steve remembers it - the crowd boos at the appropriate moments and cheers a deafening roar whenever the home team scores a hit. 

There's a home run from Omaha and Steve leaps to his feet with the rest of the crowd, remembering how good it feels to lose himself in something so simple as sports while Missy dances around him, tangling her leash. 

Omaha ends up losing but it's the penultimate summer night and that alone is cause for celebration. On the lawn, Steve looks at couples sprawled next to each other on blankets and towels, holding hands and kissing softly when the stadium pipes classical arrangements of patriotic hits through the loudspeakers, gearing up for the fireworks. 

Balmy air on his skin and the warmth of the day all around pull Steve back. Another lifetime, another Fourth of July, another baseball game- Steve remembers the smell of a hot day in the city overlaid with caramel popcorn, the press of bodies in the metal bleachers. 

Bucky had worked overtime for two weeks in order to afford Dodgers tickets for the Fourth of July, had flashed them with a grin that burned brighter than the sun. "Can't I treat my guy for his birthday?" he'd asked, when Steve sputtered protests about all the money he'd just spent. 

That day, in the summer heat in a crowded Brooklyn stadium, their hands had crept close together on the warm metal bench. Steve can still recall every play in the game, even though he was preoccupied with the way their fingers brushed. He wouldn't be able to forget if he tried. 

That night in 1941 he watched the fireworks and wished on them like they were candles. He remembers he wished for peace. He wished for a future where Bucky was safe with him.

Now, Missy presses against his side and doesn't shake when the lights go dark and the fireworks begin, while all the other dogs on the lawn lose it. Steve strokes her ears and tries not to think, doesn't make a wish when the sky erupts into stars.

 

~**~

 

The sleek black truck and trailer pull up just as Steve nails the final floorboard into place in the kitchen, and sets down the nail gun just in time to hear the truck door slam.

"This the antique shop?" comes a familiar, husky voice. "It sure _looks_ old around here." 

Missy, as Steve thought she would, _loses her shit_ over Natasha. The entire time they're pulling furniture and boxes out of the trailer into the living room, the dog sticks to Natasha's side, pressing up to her hand with a cold, wet nose. Steve nearly breaks his neck tripping over the small pile of tennis balls and frisbees that Missy systematically accumulates in front of the door, trying to get Natasha to throw something for her. 

"Hey, that's _my_ dog," he has to complain halfheartedly at several points during her stay. 

Natasha croons at Missy in Russian, sneaks her food from the table, spoils her rotten. 

"One second, Rogers," Natasha saysthat evening when the shadows lengthen around them as they chat on the front lawn, before dashing across the lawn, past the driveway, and into the corn field across the street, where she disappears with the tall summer stalks hardly rustling. 

Before Steve can protest Missy chases after her, barking madly, and disappears into the corn as well - Steve can track her by the stalks rustling. 

Missy runs in circles and begins barking frantically until Natasha ambushes her, then darts back into the neat rows. They repeat the game until the stars pop out, one by one in the cobalt sky. 

 

Natasha isn't squeamish about helping him with the house, but does call first dibs on the bath when they're done, and isn't afraid to swipe his feet out from under him to make sure she gets upstairs first.

She brings Steve's furniture - the oak living and dining room set; his mattress and the ridiculously soft mattress pad which he's actually happier to see than he thought he'd be. She also brings the router that Tony's been threatening him with for weeks and sets up a home network in roughly twenty minutes, deaf to Steve's protests. 

"Housewarming gifts," she proclaims, when the internet is hooked up. 

Steve blinks. "Tasha, that looks like your laptop." There is a sticker for something called a Pussy Riot on the lid, and Steve feels a little obscene just looking at the words. 

She boots it up. "Yeah, it is, that's not it. Go get that box, all of your housewarming gifts are in it." She nods toward the huge box labeled OLD GUY STUFF in Sharpie. 

Steve is perplexed until she sets up a private video link between her laptop and what must be the big screen in the living room at Avenger's tower, because thirty seconds later he almost drops the box as they're met with a hearty roar from Thor and Clint. 

"FRIEND STEVE," Thor hollers, probably a little louder than he has to in order to be heard. "IT GIVES ME GREAT PLEASURE TO SEE YOU LOOKING SO HALE AND HEARTY IN YOUR NEW DWELLING PLACE."

"Good to see you too, Thor," Steve grins up at where he thinks the webcam is. "I hope you're doing well too."

"I ADMIT THAT MANY OF YOUR MIDGARDIAN CUSTOMS STILL ESCAPE ME," Thor says, brow crinkling a little bit. Steve's kinda missed being the least out of touch guy in the room, but Thor inspires such genuine fondness in everyone who meets him, Steve feels bad for thinking that. "TONY STARK HAS INFORMED ME THAT THE COLORFUL EXPLOSIONS MIDGARD SETS OFF ANNUALLY IN JULY ARE ACTUALLY IN TRIBUTE TO YOU, GOOD CAPTAIN. THEY ARE LIT ON THE EVE OF YOUR BIRTH EVERY YEAR IN THE HOPES THAT YOU MIGHT SEE THEM AND FIND YOUR WAY HOME?"

"That's ah, that's not quite it, buddy -" Steve's laughing, until Natasha jabs her finger at the webcam. 

"You let Thor watch Tangled, you heartless bastard." 

"In my defense, he wanted to, and it was on TV when it was his turn to pick the movie -" Tony begins, and is drowned out by Clint seeing the OLD GUY STUFF box and hooting like a frat boy. "Mine first, you gotta, mine is obviously the best one -" 

Clint and Tony squabble briefly over whose housewarming gift gets to be opened first - Clint argues that the biggest, douchiest gifts should be saved for last, Tony arguing in favor of last and least - while Steve sits uncomfortably until Natasha rolls her eyes and pops the flaps open.

"Wow, this is - I really don't know what this is," Steve admits, opening Thor's gift, which has been wrapped in spangly silver and red paper.

"I thought it would be useful in your new home!" Thor says happily, maybe getting the memo that Steve can hear him without yelling. "I have ordered several of these Sticky Buddies for the Tower of Stark as well, so that I may contribute meaningfully to keeping our communal home inviting and tidy!"

Sliding the so-called Sticky Buddy out of the box, what looks like a paint roller covered in giant slug ooze, Steve grins brightly at Thor through the computer camera. "Thanks, Thor, I really appreciate it!"  
"Speak nothing of it, Captain!" Thor says, laughing heartily. "I hope the Sticky Friend aids you in your domestic pursuits! There is no shame in a man tending hearth and home." 

"Thor loves infomercials," Natasha informs Steve. "I had him order me a set of Ba'Noodles, they've come in very handy for work."

"He's ordered Shake Weights for the gym, too," Tony says, very obviously trying to keep a straight face. "He's the only one who uses them."

Clint elbows him. "Don't lie, Stark, we all have access to the security camera footage." 

This causes another brief squabble, which Steve ignores as he pulls a lidded wicker basket out of the box.

"Oh, that's Brucie's," Tony says, remembering that Steve and Natasha are at the other end of the connection. "He's in the Andes right now chewing coca leaves in ancient ruins or something, asked that I pass on his best wishes and whatnot -"

The wicker basket contains a delicate glass teapot that Steve could probably crush in one hand if he's not careful and several varieties of green teas, all sewn up into strange little balls. They all smell earthy and strangely floral, but amazing. "When he's back, get him on the phone for me, I'll tell him thank you in person," he says. "Guess that means I need to buy a kettle, right?"

Clint can barely sit still when Steve pulls a wrapped box roughly the size and weight of Missy's kennel out of the OLD GUY STUFF box. "There should be something else, too," he says gleefully. "But open the box first." 

Steve does, and stops. Natasha claps a hand to her forehead. "Jesus, Clint, you didn't." 

"New house, a man needs appliances," Clint says sagely. 

Usually, Steve would tend to agree, but a ferociously pink Hello Kitty microwave oven wouldn't be Steve's first choice. Or his second, either. Probably not his third. Steve is comfortable enough in both his masculinity and sexuality to say he likes the color pink, but is kind of overwhelmed by the saccharine white cat face on an otherwise useful appliance.

"It's, uh," he begins, and falters. "It's. Wow, Clint. That's something."

Clint absolutely _busts up_ laughing. 

"If you want, Cap," Tony offers, "I can probably rewire the damn thing, give it some more juice and a new finish - actually, hell yeah, send it back, you can be the proud owner of the world's first prototype Hello Starky microwave -"

"Thank you," Steve says firmly, determined to make the best of Clint's ridiculous idea of a gift - because it is still a gift, damn it. "But no thanks to the remodel. I need something to heat up my oatmeal in the mornings." 

Clint's other gift bears the same thoughtful brand of Hawkeye humor, because at the bottom of the box is a garish red mug with _World's Best Grandpa!_ in appalling yellow balloon font. Steve can't help but laugh, and promises Clint he'll use it every day, which earns him an enthusiastic fistpump from the bowman. 

There's nothing left in the box after that, and for a second Steve is a little confused until Tony drawls, "Your gift is still in transit, don't worry, I signed for 24 hour delivery so if they arrive after 10 am tomorrow let the delivery man know he needs to start updating his resume -"

"Tony, I'm not going to make someone lose their job over -"

"Your kitchen is TOTALLY BARE with the exception of Barton's Hello Kitty nightmare, how do you think that makes me feel?" Tony interrupts, waving his hands. "Especially after you reject my generous offer of Hello Starky technology - yeah actually I'm pretty hurt about that, don't look surprised, Cap, I can be sensitive too, but _anyway_ long story short the prize behind Door Number Three is the new generation of energy-friendly StarkHome kitchen appliances, congratulations, you now have the most bitchin' kitchen west of the Mississippi -"

Steve is about to squawk, "Tony, I can't accept that, that's too much," when he remembers the sad state of the appliances the first time he walked through that kitchen and shuts his mouth. "That's real big of you, Tony, I appreciate it a lot," he says. "The stove that came with the house had mice nesting under it, so I'm - thank you." 

Tony grins at him. "No mice in this stove, only the most efficient six-burner range and dual convection oven that money can buy. Also, I wanted to get them to do a custom paint job on the freezer to look like that clunky old HYDRA aircraft but Pep wouldn't let me and said you'd like the stainless steel better."

"I do like the steel better," Steve says a little uncomfortably. "Give Miss Potts my thanks for vetoing the HYDRA plane." 

"I'm still holding out hope that we can get it as a little decal for your coffeepot," Tony says, and it's right about now that Steve realizes he's joking, and starts laughing with Tony and Clint. 

They're still all three of them chuckling over the sheer ridiculousness of it all - the appliances, the Colonial Blue on the wall, Missy (who Clint immediately takes a shine to, exclaiming something about a pizza dog), the utter lunacy of the notion that they're a bunch of superheroes skyping each other from living rooms in New York and Nebraska, when Natasha signs them off and announces she's hungry.

Steve takes her to Poor Boy's because it's a Friday night, where she eats an entire order of Dynamite Wings by herself and drinks Dr. Tiedmann under the table, hanging over the jukebox and debating who did best version of 'Little Sister.' 

Six drinks later she's still steady on her feet through the front door, but collapses on the air mattress they've set up in the living room and falls asleep so quickly Steve wonders if he'd be able to get close enough to at least pull her boots off without her filleting him. 

 

"I wanted to wait to give you my housewarming gift," Natasha says early the next morning over instant coffee on the creaky front porch. Despite the late night and her liberal application of Wild Turkey, she's looking chipper enough. Missy has planted her head on Natasha's knee and is drooling slowly onto her cotton pajama pants. "Honestly, I'm not sure I even want to give it to you now." 

"Why not?" Steve asks, sipping at his own coffee. 

Very pointedly, Natasha looks at him drinking from his new World's Best Grandpa! mug. Then she looks at the toolbox next to the porch steps, where he's been meaning to start replacing the boards. She looks at Missy drooling on her pajamas, then back up at Steve. "You're happy, Rogers." 

Steve clamps his lips shut and swallows his coffee. It's...well, it's not debatable. He _is_ happy, or at least happier than he's been in a long time. Thinking about working on his little house in the middle of nowhere and growing a vegetable garden, having dinner with his neighbors and beers with Dr. Tiedmann gives him the strange sort of anticipatory joy he'd only associated with thinking about the end of the war, back when every day was fighting, before the train in the cold mountain pass. 

Natasha doesn't need anything more than that. No explanations, nothing. He doesn't have to say anything, she just _knows_. It's one of the things Steve likes best about her. She sits back, swirls her coffee in its mug. 

"I'm gearing up for an assignment," she says at length. "Five weeks; standard stuff. You and I had that conversation about extermination before you left." 

Those words from a year and a half ago - _a lot of rats didn't go down with the ship_. Steve suddenly feels a creeping prickle on the back of his neck. He's never felt afraid in this house, in Nebraska, and isn't sure he wants to start now. 

Natasha watches him carefully. "Hill and I are going to Texas," she says. "Pecos County, if you can believe it."

Steve smiles wryly at her. "Gonna rustle yourselves up a good time?" 

"If you can call it that." The corner of her mouth twitches. "It's probably nothing. But if it's something..."

"I'm supposed to be the overdramatic one here, Tasha." 

Natasha fixes him with a look. On her knee, Missy huffs a petulant whine at the lack of attention, and earns scratches behind her ears for her trouble. " _Probably_ nothing. But there's a convenient paper trail, enough to be something, between gun runners on the border and - well, that's still technically classified, but I'm sure Maria won't mind me telling you anyway. The point is, there's enough of a tie between these gun runners and HYDRA to call it a lead." 

Steve feels himself freeze, grip tightening around his ridiculous mug. Natasha continues, "I don't know all the logistics but I know there's been a lot of very expensive artillery exchanged for a lot of money, which means that someone is either very scared and gearing up just in case -"

"Or they're dumb enough to go after him themselves," Steve says icily. "It won't work. I've tried, and I -" _I know him,_ he wants to finish. _I know his habits,_ except he doesn't any more, not really. 

Natasha reaches over. Her hand is warm on his arm. "So that's my housewarming gift. To you. Surprise," she says dryly.

"Only you would give me an invitation back in to celebrate me officially getting out," Steve says, not without fondness. 

Unrattled, Natasha shrugs and sits back in her chair again, rolling out the kinks in her shoulders. Steve can hear them pop and makes a mental note to offer her the real mattress instead of the air one tonight.

"You had a good reason to get out," she replies, looking out at the stalks of corn across the road rustling lazily in the morning breeze.

Natasha's rental truck is gone when Steve gets out of the shower, and instead of a note, a plain manila folder has mysteriously shown up on the kitchen counter next to the newly-installed Hello Kitty microwave. He doesn't open it, despite the pang of temptation, the longing to dare hope that this might be _the_ lead....

He did have a good reason to get out. And he's not sure if chasing that ghost again is a good enough reason to get back in now. 

At the screen door Missy whines out at the empty driveway, wondering where her favorite Sharp Pointy Human has gone.

"Me too, little girl," Steve sighs, putting his mug in the kitty-festooned microwave. 

 

The StarkHome van rolls up at 9.30 prompt, and the StarkHome kitchen set is everything Tony promised and more. 

"Dear Steve, I hope you enjoy the shiny new toys, but hopefully not as much as I'm enjoying one-upping Barton. Ha ha ha, love, Tony," Steve reads aloud from the delivery papers as a swarm of technicians unpackage and install the fridge into the cubby Steve had carefully measured out and cut. 

The range reminds Steve of a small chrome tank and has more dials and buttons than he knows what to do with. The dishwasher is voice-activated to start and announces in a cool, JARVIS-esque voice when the dishes are dry, and can probably do everything but put the damn things away by itself. The coffee maker and blender probably have an IQ ten times his. The ice dispenser in the fridge door, Steve is pretty sure, is voice-activated and can deliver perfect cubes of ice scientifically proven to be the right temperature for whatever he is drinking at the moment. The washer and dryer look like they're capable of suborbital flight.

The crowning touch is the sleek microwave that's unboxed and set, rather unnecessarily, on top of the Hello Kitty microwave that's already plugged in. 

Steve tips all the techs for their hard work and, after they leave, puts the StarkHome microwave back in its box and hauls it to the basement. Clint's gift absolutely has not started to grow on him.

With impeccable timing as always, Natasha returns right after the installation is complete, balancing what must be a dozen grocery bags with perfect ease. Because the fridge is, at the core of it, StarkTech, the wait between plugging the fridge in and having it be cold enough for food is about twenty seconds. 

"Sometimes I think I'm never going to get used to the twenty-first century," Steve says blandly, watching Natasha stock his refrigerator with almond milk and armfuls of fresh vegetables. 

"You get used to it," she replies. 

"They keep telling me that," Steve says, glancing at the digital readout on the coffee pot, which is telling him the current temperature outside. Why is that even necessary? He shouldn't feel like an old fogey in his house; it's part of his reluctance to move into Avengers Tower. 

When Rick and Zelda come over for dinner that evening, they stand in awe of the gleaming appliances in the kitchen, set off by the richly-stained floorboards glowing under the clean glass light fixtures. Steve's sort of ridiculously proud of it

"Rick," Zelda proclaims, staring at the oven, "I take it back. Grant can't have the house now, we're moving back in." 

"I agree," says Rick. "Not sure about the pink microwave, I'm thinking he can keep that."

They're even more in awe of Natasha and the way she grills rib-eyes to perfection over the impossibly technologically-advanced gas range using cast iron that has mysteriously appeared from nowhere. 

He's not sure what Natasha told them about herself while he was left fending for himself over pie and ice cream for dessert in the kitchen, but Rick and Zelda seem to be under the impression that Natasha is a girlfriend of some sort, because Rick winks at him in what he believes to be a surreptitious manner when they're bidding their good-nights on the porch three hours later. 

"They're cute," Natasha proclaims from her perch on the arm of the couch when the door is shuts and they're out of earshot. 

"I think they think _we're_ cute," Steve says, flicking the deadbolt. Natasha's eyebrows raise. 

"I wasn't trying to give them that impression, I assure you. You're not my type."

"You're not mine either," Steve huffs out a laugh. "On that note, you're welcome to the actual bed tonight, which I promise I will not be sharing with you." 

"Pretty sure making Captain America sleep on an air mattress is an act of national treason, but I've been accused of worse," she smirks, and goes into the closet-sized downstairs WC to change. 

They bed down on opposite sides of the living room, Natasha on the comfortable mattress, Steve feeling a little like he's going to pop the bed if he so much as rolls over - Missy, who should be in her kennel, hops up on the mattress next to Natasha and will not be moved for love nor Milkbones. Steve feels a little betrayed. 

"I'm pretty sure I am your type," Natasha says out of nowhere, not long after the lights are off, like they're preteens swapping secrets in summer camp. 

"Are you, now?" 

"It's not escaped my attention that you have a tendency toward pointy ex-Soviets with hazy moral compasses." 

Steve stares at the shadows as they move across his ceiling. He wonders if it's too late to paint the ceiling if he throws plastic sheeting down, or if he'll have to lug everything out of the living room all over again. It didn't really register when he was painting. 

"Cap, we talked about you answering by not answering," Natasha chides him softly. 

Steve rolls over, air mattress protesting softly, to look at her from across the room. "Tasha, I think maybe it's time that I just don't answer. I think it's time to let it go." When she remains silent, stroking Missy's shoulders and looking at the ceiling, he can't seem to stick his foot in his mouth and leave well enough alone, because he continues, "Even if we did find him, who's to say that what HYDRA did to him can ever be undone? Or that they'll even let us have him back? I don't know if I was fooling myself thinking that Bucky was still in there somewhere, but I don't think I can do what needs to be done if things go south. You can."

She finally rolls over, fixing him with a look that's deadly, even though it's dark and he can't appreciate the full power of it. "You and I both know you don't really believe that deep down, Rogers." 

"But maybe I need to," he says, wishing they'd drop this already. It feels like stripping off layers of flesh one at a time, sharp and raw.

"Then you should," she says steadily. "That's your prerogative. You're safe here. You're happy. But you'll know where to find me when you change your mind about letting this go, because we both know that you think it's not worth giving up. And we both know if it came down to it you wouldn't let me take that shot."

"Then maybe you don't know me as well as you thought," Steve says abruptly, rolling over and facing the windows. 

Natasha sighs from across the room and there's a rustle of sheets as she covers up. Neither of them sleep well that night. 

 

His mood doesn't improve much the next day. They're both quiet when he and Natasha haul his bedroom set up the narrow staircase into the master suite. Natasha, bless her, doesn't press the issue, just wipes off her forehead with the back of her hand and asks, "Breakfast?" 

For the rest of her stay she puts the new StarkHome kitchen tech through its paces, cooking up a storm, though at first she did shake her head and tut at the lamentable state of Steve's knives, which she spent a good three hours sharpening to deadly perfection. They go on walks with Missy. They arrange and then re-arrange the furniture in his living room. They see Rick and Zelda, who seem to become more and more convinced that Steve and Natasha are together-together, which Natasha seems to think is hilarious.

Steve doesn't ask her about Pecos County, nor does he look at the files she gifted him. 

She doesn't ask. He appreciates that.

 

She leaves for Texas early Monday afternoon after spending nearly two hours in his bathtub. "I don't know if you've been to Pecos County, but they don't have soaking tubs, let me enjoy this," she yells from behind the closed door when Steve knocks. She's still pruny when she drives off.

After Natasha leaves the dog is distraught, running in circles and trying to find out where her Sharp Human went. Her whines are so mournful, make him feel so awful he snaps, "Missy, stop," then feels even worse when her ears drop and she slinks to the screen door to sulk. 

Peggy was right, as always: He's feeling overdramatic about this and it's awful. Worse than feeling awful, he feels _useless,_ like he did in the back of a HYDRA van, after Bucky didn't recognize him and there was nothing he could do about it. 

He gives up on trying to unpack all of his books into the shelves he put up on the wall dividing the living room from the kitchen, choosing instead to sit on the floor next to Missy and stroke her ears as an apology. She licks his wrist, tail thumping softly on the floor, and Steve knows an _It's okay, Papa_ when he sees it. 

He draws for the rest of the afternoon, letting Missy chew on the wadded-up balls of sketches that didn't quite make it, and doesn't feel any better when he gets up to make himself dinner, but he also doesn't feel any worse. That's something.

 

~**~

 

Nebraska weather is just plum crazy. Brooklyn summers, he knows what to expect: Dizzying heat bouncing off of brick and pavement, occasional thunderstorms, everything hot and vibrant.  
Here, one week is all cool breezes and fluffy clouds, then the next Steve can hardly breathe for how oppressive the heat and stale humid air are. Stepping outside reminds him forcefully of having asthma again, he can hardly breathe, so he holes up and does as much indoor work as he can. Hopefully one day when it's not a billion humid degrees outside he'll be able to tackle the porch, until then he finishes up his master suite. 

It's not a huge suite but it's large and comfortable enough; bed taking up most of the right wall, flanked by nightstands. He keeps his desk underneath the window, where the light is best, and there's a view of the sea of corn across the road, broken by a barn and grain silo in the distance. Some days, with the window thrown open, he can hear the train running through town if the wind is right.

He bought Missy a cushy dog bed, the softest and easiest to clean that he could find, and set it next to his desk, hoping she would take the hint and get off his bed. She doesn't, but it was worth a shot.

There's nothing under his bed but his shield. There's nothing in his nightstand drawer but the pale yellow envelope he hasn't opened. He doesn't know when he'll let himself use either of them.

 

~**~

 

Into August the heat still hasn't broken. Steve briefly considers asking the other Avengers to send any mad scientists with weather controlling machines in their arsenal out to Nebraska, because he is seriously at his wits' end. Even the Weather Science Diatribe from Tony and Bruce that request would earn would be worth it. He makes the mistake of texting Natasha to complain about the heat, and in response gets a picture of the temperature gauge in her truck hitting 115 in the Texan shade. 

Steve only cooks at night when the heat allows, and feeds Missy ice cubes from the dispenser on the fridge whenever he gets something to drink. When they go to bed Steve has to boot the thermostat down by five or so degrees - sleeping with a furry dog pressed up against him is an impossibility, cold nose be damned. 

Despite being so petite for a nearly full-grown dog, Steve is constantly amazed at Missy's ability to take up the entire bed. She wriggles a lot and sleeps with her head jammed between his arm and his side, or sprawled across his legs, but her presence becomes less annoying and more comforting. She's quieter than the only other bedmate Steve's had - Bucky snored like a fat hibernating bear, especially in the winters when colds and their crappy furnace conspired to keep them both congested and miserable. Missy whuffs and snuffles in his ear, but that's it.

Which is why he's so surprised to wake up to her rumbling low and deep in her throat early one morning, her body tense and coiled tight against his side. Instantly he snaps from half-asleep daze to awareness - the room is silent, somewhere in the house a board creaks as it settles which is nothing he's not used to, but something is definitely off. Steve snaps into high alert like a switch has been flicked.

Missy's growling lowers in octave and raises in ferocity, the kind of primal snarl that not only shows fangs but promises intimate acquaintance with them. Steve's skin prickles. He feels sweat bead cold on the back of his neck. Missy stays glued to his side as he slowly moves to the left, careful not to make the bed creak or the sheets rustle. 

He avoids the one floorboard just outside the bedroom door that squeals at the slightest pressure, padding slow and careful from the landing to the stairs, torn between reason ( _there's nothing there, I'm undercover, no one should know Steve Rogers lives here_ ) and instinct ( _there's someone in the house there's someone in the house there's someone **in the house)**_.

At the bottom landing everything's still and quiet. Steve's eyes cast about in the dark, searching for anything out of the ordinary. The shadows in the kitchen are the same; moonlight bounces thin off of the stainless steel appliances. Missy's fused to his pajama legs, ears pricked and swiveling this way and that. She's anxious and wary, but no longer growling.

Steve waits for several minutes, feeling the tension ratchet down as each second passes with nothing. He's turning to head back upstairs, feeling a little foolish, when there's a clatter from the back porch and he's not fast enough to block the door flying open-

\- a solid shadow - 

\- pain is blooming bright and white-hot at the base of his skull - 

\- he senses rather than feels himself black out, Missy barking desperately the last thing he knows.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some old friends return! 
> 
> But maybe not the one you're thinking about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry guys, I'm going to be gone at Pride all weekend and thought I'd post the next chapter to tide you over instead of screwing up the update schedule. 
> 
> Please note there are a few more warnings for this chapter: Violence, and threat of violence toward animals.

From somewhere he can hear the low rumble - machinery - and infrequent, alien noises, like he hasn't heard since New York. His head is heavy, like it's stuffed with concrete. It takes a couple of blinks to get his vision to clear completely, and it's still not all that great when it does.

Something presses close against him, the warm comfort of a furry body, and slowly Steve realizes the machinery and alien noises are Missy, snarling and barking and making noises that Steve's only heard in particular sorts of horror films. 

Almost certainly he's been concussed, there's a band like an iron vice around his wrists, which throb uncomfortably. When he inhales white shocks of pain shoot from his sides and torso. He counts three cracked ribs, maybe four, when he breathes. The back of his head feels sticky and tender, where it brushes back against chilly concrete. 

For a second panic flares up in him, which only abates when he realizes he's not been dragged any farther than down the stairs to his basement. He's tied, hands above his head, to the pipe that busted when the water main was turned on. He seems to be alone for now, which is good.

But he also has a concussion and cracked ribs, is in the middle of a home invasion, and is zip-tied to his plumbing, which is bad. 

If he gets out of this he might have to call Stark and ask if any of his kitchen appliances feature a home security system option. 

For now he tries to move his throbbing hands enough to get circulation back, trying to soothe Missy even though his tongue feels thick in his mouth and words are maybe a little more difficult to manage than he wants to let on. She whines frantically, pressed to him so close that if he concentrates he can feel her heart beating doubletime. 

Twisting his hands accomplishes nothing but making his wrists raw and sore, which is frustrating, but somewhere in a still-functioning corner of his brain Steve knows he can handle this. He's Captain America. He can handle a home invasion, can give back double what any ski-masked thugs think they can dish out, even with numb hands and a concussion. 

Then the basement door swings open and Steve looks up, dizzy, and sees Agent Rumlow walking down the stairs. 

Shit. 

It's not the Rumlow that Steve worked with or fought against. Beneath his dark shirtsleeves his skin warps and puckers in sickening valleys; it takes Steve a moment to recognize severe burns still in the process of healing, and can't even imagine the agony that receiving those burns must have been.

"Nice place," Rumlow says conversationally, seeing that Steve's regained consciousness. He grins, the scars on his face craggy in light and shadow. "I'm a fan of the microwave. Unexpected, but a nice touch."

Steve frowns a little. This isn't how he imagined this would go, insofar as he imagined this confrontation going at all.

"Gotta say, Cap," says Rumlow, "I thought you were smarter than this. You are really lousy at covering your tracks." 

"Mngh," Steve says noncommittally. His head is spinning and his ribs burn and Missy's growling against him, ears flat against her skull, teeth bared. It's a lot to concentrate on at once.

 _Come on, Rogers, compartmentalize,_ says the back corner of his brain that sounds a little bit like Nick Fury. 

Rumlow is going to launch into the standard "You are helpless under my power and here are the several extensively painful ways I am going to ruin your day" speech that he's noticed HYDRA agents like to give; it's pretty obvious from the slightly unsettled smirk Rumlow is watching him with. With luck and the right questions, he can stall Rumlow for as long it takes for his head to clear, so he can stand up without toppling over. After that...he needs to get his hands free, and shield Missy. He can take a bullet at close range. She can't.

Rumlow is virtually covered in guns. At his side is a bulky pistol with silencer attached which Steve is pretty sure Rumlow used to clock him over the back of the head. And because Rumlow is crazy but not stupid, and well-prepared enough to catch him unaware, Steve is 99% sure he's got some explosive projectiles somewhere on his person in addition to the guns and knives tucked into his steel-toed boots.

"This isn't just about HYDRA any more, Cap. This isn't just about SHIELD or Insight. It's bigger."

"I'm not -" Steve tries to make himself sound woozier than he feels, which is pretty easy, considering he's pretty woozy to begin with. "I've given up on that. SHIELD. HYDRA. I'm just. I live in a farmhouse now. I'm out of that, I don't want anything to do with it."

"Little too late for that," Rumlow says. "You remember how way back when, I said it was nothing personal, Captain?" He's obviously enjoying this. It'd be more annoying if Steve didn't hurt so bad. "That day with the hellicarriers. That made it pretty personal, but you know what makes it even worse?" He drags his hand down one cheek. "Know how much losing ninety percent of your skin hurts? That made it _personal._ So I'm gonna make this real personal for you too." 

He draws the pistol he clocked Steve with, slow and deliberate, making sure Steve is watching, and levels it at Missy.

Okay, change of plans. 

"Not the dog," Steve says, raising his head up a little bit, while his heart is jumping into his throat. "You can do whatever you want with me, kill me, HYDRA wins, just don't hurt my dog."

"No, see, you don't get it," Rumlow says lightly. "I think you missed the part where I said this was personal." 

Horribly, like its in slow motion, Steve hears the subtle, evil _click_ of the gun cocking over the stillness in the basement and Missy's snarling. There's a roaring past the pain in his head and ribs.

"Pain isn't always physical, Cap," Rumlow says, hand utterly steady. "It helps if it is, but I'm going to save that for later. Much later. Here's what I'm going to do: You're gonna watch your mutt die. You're going to feel it bleed out on you. And there's not going to be a damn thing you can do about it." 

"Please don't hurt my dog," Steve says, feeling like he's going to be sick. 

"Then you know what will happen next? You're gonna find out what it feels like to lose ninety percent of your skin, trapped under a collapsing building. The fire is gonna be slow, and it's gonna be hot. And the plan is at that point, you're gonna be so fucked up even the serum won't be able to help.  
"That's the plan, at least. It's tentative and I am so very, very flexible. If you suffocate or your head gets crushed before that happens, I'm probably not going to lose any sleep over that."

"Just let her go," Steve says, heart racing. The dull roaring in his ears is getting louder and louder. "She didn't do anything to you, it was me, so just let my dog go."

Rumlow raises an eyebrow. "The general rule in HYDRA is that Captain America does not beg for his life, but all it takes is me holding a gun to a fucking dog to make him crack?" He considers, and grins. "I am going to enjoy this."

"Please," Steve tries again, knowing he sounds so weak, helpless and quiet against the rush of blood and dizziness. Against Steve's side, Missy's stopped growling and presses even closer to him. Her ears are still flat, she's breathing so fast and heavy that she whines on the exhale, her heart pounding rabbit-fast against him. 

There's a hellish bang and Steve wrenches his eyes shut, dreading the feeling of his sweet dog bleeding out on him, so unprepared for it, he wants to scream and maybe throw up and it feels like his worst asthma attack, but the shot he hears isn't close enough to be directed at Missy -

Rumlow makes a noise like he's been socked in the gut, when Steve's able blink away his tunnel vision he sees a dark stain spreading over Rumlow's shoulder. Running on instinct he snaps his legs out to sweep out Rumlow at the knees with a kick; he hears two wet, unpleasant, fleshy snaps, the HYDRA operative stumbles as his knees dislocate and that's all it takes for Steve to aim a kick to his temple. He's still shaky and dizzy so there's not much force behind it, but it's still powerful enough to make Rumlow crumple like a sack of flour. 

It happens so fast, in the space of twenty seconds or less, that Steve has to slump against the wall to try and recover himself. Missy whines frightfully against him, shaking from the loud noise and the flash of gunfire; he tries to make comforting noises at her but can't even convince himself that it's okay now.

A dark shadow moves down from the top of the basement landing to crouch over Rumlow's body, holstering a gun to check the pulse. 

"You were supposed to kill him." 

For a second Steve thinks that maybe he's imagining the whole thing, he's not sure if concussions can cause hallucinations and he wonders if this is just wishful thinking when the shadow looks up balefully at him and his heart stops. 

"Buck," he says, thickly, then swallows and tries again. "Bucky, y-you -"

Bucky stands. In the dim light Steve can barely catch the gleam of the metal arm. "Can you get out of that cuff or do I have to deal with that too?" he asks, clipped.

Steve gives an experimental tug on the pipes; they creak and strain threateningly."If I pull on the pipes too much they'll bust." 

The dark-haired man makes a frustrated noise and draws a knife from nowhere. Missy tenses when he approaches and pops the zip tie, but doesn't growl. 

"Buck," he begins again, but Bucky ignores him in favor of rifling through the unconscious Rumlow's many pockets, pulling guns and knives out from every nook and cranny. Steve sees him pocket a grenade and swallows. A red ring cut tight into his wrists from the zip tie is burning, already beginning to heal, and his hands tingle as they regain feeling. 

He rolls his wrists a couple of times to help speed his circulation, and as soon as he's able to he picks Missy up like he did when she stepped in the paint. She ducks her head next to his, keening softly and shaking against him as he strokes her back and flanks with reassuring pressure.

Somewhere in a pocket Bucky finds more zip ties. He kicks Rumlow over with no small amount of brutality and zips his wrists and arms unnecessarily tight together. Steve hears the agent groan, and Bucky kicks him in the torso again. He turns to see Steve staring at him, holding the dog, and frowns.

"Has civilian life really made you this useless," he asks, tone short. Steve jumps a little. He sets Missy down. He's not feeling a hundred percent, not yet, but already he thinks he can stand and walk long enough to do something about an unconscious enemy agent in his house.

 

Agent Hill picks up on the second ring. "Hill."  
"Agent," he says, at the very least aware of how out of it he sounds, how it makes Hill go still and tense on the other end of the line. "A really big rat snuck into my house and is unconscious in my basement right now."

There's a poignant silence on the other end of the line as Hill processes. "We'll be there in two hours," Hill says, and before she hangs up she can hear her pull away from the phone and calling, "Widow, call Stark, Captain Rogers has a -" before the line goes dead. 

Three minutes later he's getting a call from Tony. "Is there enough room down on the farm to land a quinjet," he says without preamble.

"It's an expanse of corn-growing farmland in Nebraska," Steve says flatly. "What do you think."

Tony huffs a quiet laugh. "Hill said two hours, I can get there in one and a half. Sit tight in your rocker, Old McDonald."

There's the shuffling of the phone exchanging hands, voices in the background, and then he hears Bruce, very quiet and calm. "Captain, are you all right?"

"A little concussed. And I'm not having a great night," Steve admits. "Sorry, Bruce, tell everyone I'm okay, there's something I have to -"

He drops the call because he heard the creak of heavy boots on the top basement stair, and there's Bucky, looking wan and more scraggly than the last time Steve saw him. His hair's a little longer, face thinner, dark shadows around his eyes. 

Bucky freezes like a cat caught trying to sneak out. 

"Don't leave," Steve says. It's a plea, not an order. "Please. Don't leave me again. Not like this."

"You're expecting company," Bucky says flatly. He's looking around at the kitchen, gaze lingering a little on the microwave. The old Bucky would have had something to say about it; this Bucky glances from the pink appliance to the coffee maker without comment. "I need to go."

"Please," Steve says softly. "You don't have to see any of them if you don't want to. This is twice you've saved my life," he says, and hears Bucky inhale a little sharply, like he doesn't mean to. "Please just stay for a little, just a little longer. Just a few hours." Looking at him in the bright lights of his kitchen, pale against the hardwood and stainless steel, Steve knows something in him will die if Bucky leaves right now.

Bucky hesitates, then smiles, hollow. "Last time we met face to face I tried to kill you."

"If you wanted me to die you would have let Rumlow burn my house down around me."

"You should be calling your agents on me," Bucky says. The certainty in his voice makes Steve's heart clench painfully in his chest.

"They're not my agents any more. I'm out. Maybe for good, maybe not, but..."

Steve feels himself crumple. It's been so long since he's fainted it actually comes as a surprise when he blinks and finds himself staggered against the fridge, one hand against the counter, head spinning and heart pounding. Under the rush of blood in his ears he can hear Missy whining urgently. 

It comes as even more of a surprise when he blinks again and finds himself supported by a strong, solid body, guiding him slowly to the couch. He sits, leaning heavily against the cushions. 

"I'm not usually this much of a mess," he says hazily, lifting his arm with difficulty and letting Missy jump up next to him, completely disregarding his prior Not On The Couch rule. 

The other man remains silent in the half-dark. Steve closes his eyes again, feeling rather than seeing his scrutiny. "How long have you been watching me?" He asks, keeping his eyes shut. 

He doesn't expect Bucky to answer, so he's startled when there's a little huff of laughter that chokes off, like he's smothering a flame. "He was right. You're really terrible at covering your tracks."

"That's not an answer, Buck," Steve says. "How long?"

He hears footfalls circling the room, hears the particular creak of one floorboard near the door. He can imagine the man he once knew peering out the front window, out into the dark fields across the road. 

"Not long. This -" he breaks off, as if considering his words carefully. "I watched Rumlow watching you. I did not approach until he did. I was the second item on his to-do list. Action was a necessity."

"The gunrunners at the border?" Steve says, remembering Natasha and Hill on the paper trail.  
Bucky outright snorts at that one, harsh and derisive. "A non-issue." 

Steve's brow furrows. It feels like he doesn't know who he's talking to between one question and the next. The man in his living room has the voice of his best friend, all of his edges, but they're dangerously sharpened and splinter off in ways he's not sure how to approach.

Instead of pressing he stays very quiet, resting his hand on Missy's head and trying to remember how to breathe. 

The other man stays stationed by the door. Steve is aware of his tight-wound energy, keeping watch for any sign of the other Avengers' arrival. 

The throbbing in his head is subsiding to a mere pounding ache when Bucky finally shifts loud enough for Steve to hear. He's bracing himself for something. 

"You looked for me," he says. It punches the air right out of Steve's lungs. "Why."

"Why wouldn't I?" Steve asks, quick and honest. "I couldn't find you. I looked for months, Buck."

"I know. And then you got out," says the other man, soft, almost wondering, to himself. Steve opens his eyes, turning to find him by the door, a shadow in silver and black. 

"I got out because you were all I had," Steve says. His throat feels like it's raw, burning. "It's hard to keep going in something when you've got nothing left in you. I had to get out - had to find out something new that I could build for myself."

"Well, you've done a fine job of that," he replies, flicking his eyes around the room. For a second it's so like the old Bucky - _his_ Bucky - that he wants to cry, or scream, or something, because he can almost see that sardonic little twitch of the mouth, maybe a spark of warmth in eyes that are guarded and cool. But movement hurts, thinking hurts, it's hard to do anything beyond holding down the couch cushions and try to still the spinning wheels of his mind.

He's almost startled when his phone beeps in his pocket, having forgotten it was even in there.  
 _Five minutes out,_ says the message from Natasha, followed closely by an addendum: _Tony says have coffee ready._ He doesn't want to move, but manages to get to his feet, and instantly the Winter Soldier slides back over Bucky's face. 

"They're almost here," he says, moving stiffly to the kitchen and jabbing a button on Tony's ridiculously advanced coffee machine, which kicks on with a quiet whirr of grinding beans. "I can't promise they won't search the house -"

"Then I won't be in the house," says the man with Bucky's face shortly, brushing past him in a beeline for the spider-infested porch. Before Steve can even ask him - beg him - to stay, he's out the battered screen door and heading for the tall corn at the back of the property, strides long and swift.

 

~**~

 

"I'm not usually the one looking at other peoples' heads," Bruce says, shining an annoyingly bright little light into Steve's eyes. "Quite often it's the other way around."

For whatever reason, Steve can hear Tony snort loudly from the kitchen. "Thank you for doing this. How's it looking?" He grins a little lopsidedly. "Am I gonna make it, doc?"

"Well," Banner says, sitting back and flicking off the little light, "Considering you took a blow to the back of the head that'd put any other man into a weeklong coma, I think you'll pull through just fine." 

"You should see the other guy," Tony calls from the kitchen, where he's slugging back coffee. 

Steve really doesn't want to see the other guy, not since Tony and Hill descended to the basement with guns (or repulsor beams, in Tony's case) at the ready to find Rumlow in a pool of his own blood on the unfinished concrete floor. Rumlow's still alive, but just barely. Steve still feels a little sick about it. 

Bruce is closing up the little medical kit he brought with him. "My advice?"

"Take a few aspirin and call you in the morning?"

"Some rest and an ice pack probably wouldn't hurt, either," says Bruce, smiling quick and wry. "Now if you excuse me, I need to go make sure that big rat in the jet hasn't gone into shock." 

"Will do, Doctor," Steve says. "Tony, is there a medical ice pack setting on that fancy fridge of yours?"

"Very funny, Rogers," Tony says, remerging into the living room like he hasn't been snooping in Steve's fridge and admiring his own kitchen appliances. He's in the suit with the helm tucked under one arm, Steve's Grandpa mug in his other hand. There's something distracted in his eyes, watching Bruce step quietly onto the porch, but Steve can't tell if it's something the doctor has done or if Tony's just mentally planning improvement schematics for the Hello Kitty microwave. "I'll have you know marketing twisted my arm into toning down the amount of ice settings, as if homemakers don't need an ice shotglass option."

Natasha did her disappearing thing not five minutes after the quinjet landed in a clearing nearby, presumably sweeping the perimeters. Occasionally he hears Hill on the porch communicate with Widow over the comm link, filling her in on Rumlow's status and asking about the perimeter, and while he had to hold on to her collar to keep Missy from following Natasha, the dog is at least recovered enough to want to play Find Favorite Pointy Human. He could weep with gratitude for that, not wanting to think about how afraid he was two hours ago, when Missy could have died in his lap. 

Hill steps back into the house from the porch, from where she was sending off rapidfire phone calls. She and Tony were the ones who hauled Rumlow up the basement steps, Hill ignoring Tony's requests to "just let the asshole bleed out, I'll pay to have Cap's floor cleaned, come on, we'll be doing everyone a favor."

She looks down at him on the couch, her face a little tanned and very tired in the 3 am kitchen light. "Captain Rogers, I know you're probably not going to want to -"

"I'm not going anywhere," Steve says firmly, stretching out on the couch and propping his feet up on the arm rest, unable to stop the little huff of pain when his ribs are jostled. He's still in his pajamas, he still hurts, and even though he's been assured his brains aren't too badly scrambled he will not leave his house, not while there's still the chance that - 

He very quickly changes his train of thought to a different track, because he doesn't want it to show on his face. 

"That's okay, then," Hill says, softening a little. "You've been through a lot tonight, so take your time before you come take care of this with us. Our resources are open to you if you need them. Stark, may I have a word?" Hill beckons Tony out to the front porch. He raises the coffee cup in a little salute to Steve on the couch on his way out, which makes Steve smile. 

He's just starting to relax, feel the tension in his spine uncoil ever so slightly, when - 

"Okay, if you have a good reason for lying, I'll understand, but please at least consider being honest with me," says Natasha right next to his ear. Steve flails a little, nearly falling of the couch. He forgot well, damn, just how sneaky she could be.

"I'm always honest, and that was low, Tasha," he says, willing his pulse to slow the hell down. "I've been through enough tonight, so I'd appreciate it if you actively tried not to send me into cardiac arrest."

"I'm sure," she says dryly, sweeping his feet off the arm rest and seating herself where his legs had been propped up. He groans, because _ow,_ ribs. 

Natasha's not in what Clint and Tony started sarcastically referring to as her Widow's Weeds, rather, cargo pants, boots, and an oversized black T-shirt that Steve suspects was her Pecos County pajamas. Missy immediately noses up to her, licking her arm. "Don't change the subject." Steve follows her eyes as they flick from the front door, where Hill and Tony are talking softly on the front porch, back down to him. "Why are you lying to us?" 

"What makes you think I'm lying?" 

"Well, first off, we've established you're a terrible liar," Natasha says, smirking. "Second, it's not amateur cop hour. Both Hill and I know the bullet trajectory doesn't match up. The exit wound on Rumlow's shoulder is at an impossible angle if you shot him from the front like you claim to have done."

Ah. Steve blinks, trying to look guileless. "It doesn't?" 

"No, it really doesn't. From the angle the shot had to have been taken from the top of the - " Natasha stares hard at him and says, "Oh, _fuck,_ where is he?" 

"Where's who?"

"Stop _lying to me_ , Rogers," Natasha growls. She stands up and paces the living room, looking more agitated than Steve has ever seen her. "You and I both know that you weren't able to pop your cuffs and draw a gun from your jammie pants, unless you're sporting a secret pocket and - no, I'm not even going to go there, _where is he_." 

"Out back," Steve says blandly, because the game is up anyway, before following up in a rush, "If you go looking for him, I don't know what will happen, so please don't - I already had to talk him out of leaving again and - he's not dangerous, Natasha."

Abruptly she makes a noise that probably translates to, _there is a scar on my abdomen that would beg to differ._

"If he wanted me dead he would have let Rumlow kill me," Steve says. He can't believe he's having this argument again. 

Brow furrowing, Natasha spins around mid-pace to face him, fixing him with a truly intimidating stare. "Maybe that was true two hours ago, but how do you know it'll be true when he comes back? _If_ he comes back? Is he going to be the same person? Did it even occur to you he maybe got Rumlow out of the picture because he's been programmed to finish his mission himself?" 

Steve winces, and Natasha must realize the sting of her words too late, because she heaves a sigh and sits back down on the couch next to him. There's no comfort in her touch when she lays her hand on his knee; somehow it only serves to underline the gravity she's trying to convey. "All I'm trying to say, Rogers, is that the man isn't your best friend any more, and you don't know how stable he's going to be in the future."

"He seemed to be holding it together pretty well," Steve says, before he can help himself. "A little testy, but Buck was always - " 

He drops it when he sees absolute murder in Natasha's eyes. "He's not Bucky. And he might not be the Winter Soldier any more, but I don't know what the hell he is, and neither do you. And if I were you I'd be scared as hell. At best, yes, he saved you from HYDRA eighteen months after HYDRA sent him to kill both you and me. At worst, he knows your location,and now he's scoped out how to make a kill shot from any angle in the house."

Steve's headache is starting to come back, and he closes his eyes against it for a very long moment, just as Natasha says, "We've had this conversation before, Steve. And if anything this just proves to me that you won't take that shot if you have it." 

Steve bites his lip. He doesn't know what to say to make her understand, all he knows is that there's something important, something worth running after. He's known that all along, since he discovered after the fact that he'd been dragged up onto the bank of the Potomac. "Tonight there was - there was _something_ in his eyes, Tasha. I can't just -" But he doesn't know what to say, so he leaves it at that. 

Staring at him for several uncomfortable seconds, Natasha finally makes an impatient, angry-cat noise, lowering her gaze. "I won't bring this up with Hill or Stark. I'm not going to suggest a 24-7 watch on the house to make sure you don't end up dead. And I'm also not going to suggest we haul you out and back to New York by force while you're still a shaky baby kitten."

"Well, thank you for that. Though I resent the kitten comment." 

"You resemble it," Natasha says. She pushes him again, just because she can. Steve winces. The ribs really can't heal fast enough. "God, I hope you know what you're doing, Rogers, because I would really hate it if you wound up dead in Nebraska." 

"Beats dead in the Arctic." He shrugs. 

"Let's not have you dead at all," Natasha says firmly. There's a simultaneous rush of guilt and of gratitude that she's his friend, even though she's intent on delaying his ribs rejoining through physical abuse. 

"I've tended to notice," he says dryly, "that people in this line of business don't tend to stay dead for very long." 

Hill opens the door before Natasha can even respond, and announces that the jet is lifting off in five. She gives Steve a warm little smile before retreating again, and Natasha stands. 

"That's my cue." Before he can even register what she's doing, she leans and wraps an arm around him, squeezing gently, mindful of the ribs. "Be careful. And if you have to - " she draws back, looking him square in the eyes. "If you're ever in a position where you have to take the shot, and there's no other choice, you take it. Promise me you will." 

He hesitates, and something steely slides into her eyes. " _Promise me._ Because I swear if you let him shoot you again, I will come out here and finish the both of you myself." 

Steve promises, but knows that this might be the first one he'll ever break.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *holds up boom box* MY BOYFRIEND'S BACK AND HE'S GOT A REPUTATION
> 
> (not not really)
> 
> (this is not a happy story)
> 
> (yet)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A bug, some bacon, a big mistake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that this chapter is so short, but it's aIso a doozy so I think it evens out.
> 
> I swear I'm not actively trying to be sadistic.

His head feels like a freight train's driven through it and light is clawing at his eyelids like they're tissue paper. Steve slowly comes to instead of waking instantly, and if that's not an indication he's had a hell of a night he doesn't know what is. 

His neck aches from the way it's jammed up against the arm of the couch. He blinks, trying to shake off that disoriented, muzzy feeling that tends to accompany having a bad concussion. His ribs are still sore but they feel more like a deep bruise than fractures now.

Through the blinds the angle of the sun suggests late afternoon. He makes to get up but Missy's curled up on his chest. She licks his ear, tail thumping against his leg when she realizes he's awake. 

He pets her until the headache and cottonmouth abate long enough for him to contemplate getting up, and that's when he hears what originally woke him. Behind him in the kitchen there's shuffling, systematic, the sound of someone opening each door and cabinet and rifling through. 

Bucky is in his kitchen. He freezes when Steve gets up, halfway through pulling a little device out of the freezer. Steve looks at the device - the bug, he realizes slowly - and back up to Bucky, whose face is blank and even more sallow-looking in the light of day than it did in the moonlight.

Bucky's metal fingers snap the device with a ruthless, single motion before he speaks. "Your friends bugged your house."

He doesn't know what to say. He won't deny they're his friends, because they are. But bugging his house? Steve can't summon the energy to be surprised. "That must have been Tony." Getting the ice last night - Steve wasn't watching his every movement, there were bigger things on his mind. A concussion, for one. 

Bucky closes the freezer door, putting the broken bug on the counter. Steve can see the trail of his search through the kitchen. Most wouldn't even notice the way he set things back down slightly off from their original position; it's so subtle. "He did it to protect you."

"In his own way," Steve says, looking at the little shards of plastic and metal. If Stark got a sharp earful of static for his nosiness, well, he wouldn't feel too bad. It'd serve Tony right. 

"They do a good job of protecting you." There's something clipped in his tone, so different from the quiet annoyance and careful blankness of last night. It makes Steve look up. 

"So do you." Stepping closer, Steve sets his hand next to the smashed bug on the counter, hoping it's enough to make Bucky look at him, actually meet his eyes. For a few lingering seconds he stands there, half-in Bucky's personal space, and he wants so badly to close the distance and _hold_ him that his skin nearly crawls with it. 

"You always have," he says, to fill the silence and keep himself from acting on that rash impulse. 

If Steve hadn't known him for so long, been intimately familiar with all of his little tells, he would have missed the way Bucky's jaw tightened by a fraction, his eyes going wide. He steps back - not abruptly like he's been burned, but like a nervous animal shying away from an unknown, possibly frightening variable. 

"You're safe now," Bucky says. His wide eyes roll around, like they're searching out the room again. Steve wonders how much of the room he remembers from last night, and then gets a sickening feeling that maybe his short-term memory is patchy, and this new environment is distressing him. "I should - " and then he's headed straight for the back door again. 

"Don't go." Steve's voice is a little sharper than he intends, but it gets his attention. Bucky's spine snaps up tight and straight, even as his hand is on the doorknob to leave. Without even trying Steve remembers the first time he saw Bucky fresh from basic in his new uniform, how the sharp lines and tight fit straightened his spine but not the cocky, lopsided grin. He closes his eyes and breathes through the memory. Now is not the time. 

"Please don't go, Buck," he says, angling for a softer tone. "I'm safe now, and you're safe here too. There's nothing to be afraid of here. Just a few hours."

"You said that a few hours ago," Bucky says flatly, but he lifts his hand from the doorknob anyway. "And here I am still." 

"I was maybe a little concussed at the time," Steve admits, glancing down at his feet. "There's food and you can use the shower. I won't call anyone; no one knows but Natasha. It's okay for you to stay."

"Natasha." Bucky's brow furrows. It makes him look so much younger, so lost. It makes Steve want to scream. 

"You've met her before," Steve supplies. He can't tell if Bucky remembers how they met, either time in his career as the Winter Soldier. "She's a friend of mine. She's safe. She won't tell anyone where you are. You can rest, and eat, and you can use whatever you need to while you're here."

"What I need is to leave, but I guess I don't have that option now." Before Steve can even ask what he means by that, not like the man with his best friend's face will tell him anyway, he turns a tight about-face and climbs the stairs.

He doesn't remember how Natasha said _he's scoped out how to make a kill shot from any angle in the house,_ now, because Steve doesn't even have to tell him where the bathroom is.

 

~**~

 

Steve doesn't know which is worse: Not having Bucky, or having him back like this. The house can wait a week as Steve takes time off to recover, the back of his head and ribs tender but improving daily. Every day Bucky makes like he's going to leave, and every day Steve talks him into staying. Some days more than others Bucky looks like he swallows back vitriol when his hand drops from the doorknob. 

Steve cooks for two, simple, good food, but ends up putting most of it away. Bucky doesn't eat much. What he does manage, Steve has to all but make him eat, otherwise he'd spend hours just staring at whatever's on the plate Steve places in front of him. 

He wears some of Steve's old clothes and they hang off his frame. Logically, Steve knows it's because he's a little larger, a little bulkier than Bucky is now, a role reversal which would otherwise make him laugh - but Bucky doesn't eat a whole lot, and it worries him. 

He doesn't like to sleep around Steve, doesn't seem to like sleeping in general, but the second night Steve gingerly made his way downstairs to get some water and found a dark shape curled up on the couch, head tucked in facing the cushions, and his heart clenched so hard he felt himself sway on the spot. 

Quiet as he was trying to be, Bucky still startled out of his sleep, eyes wide. He rolled to his feet and had a foot out the door before Steve managed to work up a protest. "Stop, stop, don't go."

The man with Bucky's face had regarded him warily, hand on the door. In the dark it was easy to remember that he's an apex predator, and Steve a wobbly antelope in plaid flannel pajama pants. 

"You can go back to sleep, just a few more hours," he offered, trying not to sound desperate and knowing he failed utterly.

"Go rest," Bucky said finally, closing the door. But he had that look on his face - resentment? misery? - that Steve can't quite get a bead on. 

Steve obediently went back upstairs, but couldn't get back to sleep after that. 

They continue like this for several warm days, this strange in-between. The clench of the heart that Steve feels every time he sees Bucky is starting to become a near-constant ache, a pain that he's used to. 

Bucky's so very close. It's like a dream Steve's worried he's going to wake up from, but in his dreams Bucky usually doesn't avoid his eyes, tight-lipped and tense. 

 

The thing is, it doesn't even occur to him until the fourth morning. He's on the back porch, taking the garden hose to every nook and cranny in an effort to exorcise the place of spiders. Bucky is on the kitchen step, staring into the cup of coffee Steve poured for him three hours ago. He hasn't touched it. 

Bucky's been reluctant to talk. Steve understands. He hasn't been pressing the issue, choosing instead to let the words come from Bucky naturally. But the longest conversation they've had in four days were the ones when Steve was concussed, and the morning after. A full conversation is like pulling teeth, the words come so sparingly from him. He doesn't learn much from them, anyway.

Then there was the one morning Steve got a nasty shock setting a plate of bacon and eggs in front of him, and instead of the usual reluctance to eat, he'd gotten a vacant stare and a brief word in Russian. Like nothing was out of the ordinary Bucky picked up his fork and started picking at his food while Steve tried not to drop the spatula, floundering for the right reaction.

Apparently the right reaction was to do nothing at all, because the next time Bucky said a single word to him, it was in English, with a shadow of familiar Brooklyn cadence. 

Thankfully, there have been no more incidents like that. Steve knows he's safe (well, he's pretty sure he's safe). He knows Bucky's lived a whole other life that wasn't his. It hurts to think about, but some bleedover is inevitable, he thinks. One word in Russian isn't going to kill either of them. 

He just doesn't know how much more of being shut out he can take, not when he's being looked at like he's a threatening stranger whenever Bucky does manage to look him in the eye. 

The silence is a little stifling this morning. Steve turns off the hose when all the webs are knocked down, coiling it around his arm. "Talk to me, Buck." 

He means it offhandedly, the same way they used to elbow each other out of silence with a _Penny for your thoughts?_ But the minute he says it, he knows he's made a mistake. 

Bucky's spine gets that ramrod tension again. His shoulders square. When he looks up at Steve there's an unknown quantity in his eyes, and Steve _knows_ he's fucked up.

Bucky swallows, and says, "What would you like to talk about," so plain and flat he might as well be talking to an utter stranger about the goddamn weather, a verbal rolling over and showing his belly, and everything slides into place with a horrifying click. 

"I -" It takes Steve a second to find his voice. "I - Are you - Jesus, what's your direct order protocol, Bucky?" 

Realization slides over the man's face, and in the dark corners of his eyes Steve can see lingering remainders of the vitriol and misery. 

"Compliance," he says, voice hollow. Then he adds, "Inability to disobey a direct order," and his voice is lost to contempt. "Failure to comply remedied with correctional measures until orders are obeyed to satisfaction."

A film reel is playing in hyperspeed behind Steve's eyes, every split second when he told Bucky, "Don't go" over the past four days, without prefacing it with "please." Making it an order without realizing, not a plea. 

His desperation has made him no better than - than _them_. 

No better than HYDRA, no better than any number of sadistic handlers that Bucky has over the years, in the endless cycle of brief-mission-debrief-cryo-defrost-brief - 

He remembers the brief word in Russian as he fed Bucky. Every poisonous stare Bucky leveled him while his hand was on the door. 

_Oh, God._

Steve drops the garden hose and has to stick his head between his knees to keep from throwing up. His heart is pounding, he stares at his wet sneakers and feels sick, so sick. 

But there's Bucky. There's Bucky, silent on the kitchen step, while he's trying to string two words together in his horror and disgust with himself. 

He pulls himself together for Bucky. He has to. When he's able to look up Bucky's just...staring at him, eyes hollow, hands tight around his forgotten coffee cup. 

"No, Bucky, no, you're okay," he says. His tongue is loose and he's tripping over himself in his haste to make things right. He remembers talking down soldiers raw with trauma and fear, tries to think of what he said to them but _can't_ in the grip of his own panic. "You're relieved of orders - you don't have to take orders from me ever again, at ease, it's okay, I'm sorry, it's okay - you can go if you want to, Buck. Jesus, I'm so sorry, I never thought - " 

He jumps at the brittle smash of splintering china. Bucky's metal hand has shattered his coffee cup in its grip. His expression is empty - none of his subtle animosity, no disgust. It's like someone took a knife and then bled him out of every lifesign of his old self he had let Steve see. 

For a moment the man just stares at his hand and the bombshell shatter of coffee cup shards, the cold coffee dripping down his metal fingers. 

Then he looks up at Steve, who feels pale and shaky and like everything he's ever loved is tumbling unstoppably into an icy crevasse again, and he's just there to watch. 

Before Steve can say anything to make it right again, to apologize, Bucky is up and out of the kitchen, out of the house, out of Steve's life again.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tony Stark is - God forbid - helpful, Natasha multitasks, and there is Therapy Cake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is pretty talky and I'm not going to apologize for it, because if there is one thing Steve Rogers needs more than a good mope, it's a crapton of talking about his feelings with people who handle these things professionally.

Face mashed into his pillow, Steve can't hear his phone buzzing until he rolls over. He gropes for it on the bedside table, and after he's rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand he sees [You have **10** missed calls from **Tony Stark** ] on the display. 

Steve groans and rolls over again. He feels like _shit._

It's not a new feeling for him, not by a long shot, but it's been so long since he's felt like this it takes him a minute to place that it's not physical exhaustion or lingering pain he's feeling. He feels wrung out and twisted into raw knots.

Yeah, he's willing to admit that he's cried about Bucky. A _lot_. Once the tears started there was no way of stoppering them back up, nothing he could do when his little pity party began - only sit it out curled up in his bed, lifting his hand to pet Missy when she nosed at his hands.

At first the tears were for Bucky leaving again, then something within him shifted, made itself comfortable, and then he was crying for so many different reasons, for so many different people. For himself.

He thinks he's owed that much, at least.

Steve sniffs and jabs his finger at the touch screen, hoping to get this over with as soon as possible so he can go back to being a miserable lump in his bed, even as he hears Peggy's accusations of _always so dramatic_ echo around his head. 

"Stark here." Tony picks up on the fourth ring. Steve can imagine him in his chaotic lab, ordering JARVIS to hold the call for a few rings so he doesn't sound like he's too desperate, despite calling him ten times.

"What, no ribbing? No clever midwestern nicknames for me?" Steve can't bring himself to sound cheery, but it gets a chuckle out of Tony anyway. 

"I was gonna wait until football season to start so I can arbitrarily rub Huskers puns in your face," Tony says, "but in all seriousness I wanted to talk to you about - well, the offer still stands, you know it does, but I thought I'd offer again since -"

"I'm still going to take a rain check on the biometric security system," Steve says with a weary sense of resignation. 

The security system is a blaring no-go for him, not because there aren't HYDRA agents or mercenaries licking at the chops to find Captain America's private address and stage a little home invasion and gun-waving of their own, but because Steve'd willingly and happily roll out the welcome mat for the the single most dangerous man he knows.

He never said he was necessarily a _wise_ man. 

"I'm starting to think that you just don't want to see me again," Tony says. Steve can practically hear the exaggerated pouty face he's making right now.

"No, I just want a little time and privacy," Steve says. "Also you're a busy man, as you like reminding us."

"Never too busy for a _teammate,_ " Tony replies, dripping his weird sort of friendly sarcasm. "Hate to break it to you, Cap, but privacy died out with the dial-up modem. Nice underwear, by the way. Stark satellites say hi." 

"I am hanging up now," declares Steve. 

"No you're not," Tony says, and Steve doesn't. It's something he used to hate but now kind of likes about Tony - his complete and utter inability to give a single shit about what Steve thinks, except for the important things like Steve's safety.

Here Steve would make the conscious connection between Howard's shield, and Tony's security system, except for the one time he'd mentioned Howard in Tony's company the engineer had gone frigid and drawn in on himself. He'd backed out of that mine field pretty quickly, and didn't bring it up again. 

"You've been quiet. _Too_ quiet. Still with me?" On the other end of the line, Tony's all kinetic energy. Steve can hear things moving, the clink of metal and rustling of papers. "Or did someone shank you and my generous offer of the security system came tragically too late?" 

"I'm here," Steve says. Holding the phone to his ear, he rolls over to face the window. The sun is low and dim and the pastels in the sky are muted, so he can't tell if it's dawn or dusk. He kind of lost track of time curled up in bed. 

"So like," Tony says, "can you give me a window of when you'll accept this security system from me? Even just a vague one? Is it a weird sort of early 20th century thing? Are you feeling obligated to marry me because I bought you kitchen appliances and am offering you a security system? Let me tell you, marriage isn't my thing and there are a few parties that I'm pretty sure would mind you adding yourself to the queue but -"

"I don't want to marry you," Steve says. The thought is so preposterous he does feel himself smile a bit, but it doesn't make him laugh. 

"Okay good, so it's not that, is it a money thing? A generosity thing? An 'oh-Tony-you-are-so-kind-and-thoughtful-and-concerned-with-making-teamwork-work-that-I-don't-know-how-I-can-ever-repay-you' thing? Because you can pay me back by not being dead and not inviting any more trained murderers over for sleepovers until you have an actual back-up plan."

Steve inhales sharply. "Did Natasha tell you?" 

"I figured it out on my own, I left more than one bug in your house and while I am flattered you think I am a good enough person to only leave the one, we can talk about that later because, you know, road to hell, good intentions. Also I know Hill and Widow like to think that I'm totally inept but I _dealt weapons for decades_ , I know how to follow a bullet trajectory, and the trajectory from Rumlow's shoulder told me you had a freezerburned guardian angel come to your rescue."

Dropping his head into the pillow again, Steve gives a muffled groan. He can't even bring himself to be angry. "What did you hear, Tony." 

"Nothing interesting. Like hearing two old guys in a nursing home arguing over who gets the chocolate flavored pudding cup at lunch time and squabbling over watching _Family Feud_ when _I Love Lucy_ is on. Also I'd like to take this moment to say a) I'm a good person and did not listen to you have a breakdown, despite all evidence to the contrary, b) you're a dunce, even I could have told you that he'd have direct order protocol ingrained into his scrambled brainpan somehow, and c) you okay?" 

"Yes," Steve says automatically, but it's a lie and Tony knows it because he poorly disguises making a noise at catching Captain America in a fib. "No," he amends. "No, I'm not, I'm awful, Tony. I feel like -" 

"Like you were too overwhelmed by having him back you didn't even consider the consequences of not saying please?" 

" - like I wasted whatever chance I had to have him back by being too blinded by my own desperation to see or think about his damage," Steve says. The bitter thought has been haunting him ever since he heard the door close behind Bucky - not a slam but a quiet thud that just seems even more final. Sometimes, in the quiet between waves of sadness over the past few days, that sound was all he could hear. "This was my third chance, and I blew it. And we're not often afforded fourth chances." 

"We're afforded as many chances as we need to realize we've gotta go about things differently, and we go with that until we find another way of fucking up somehow." 

"Speaking from experience, Tony?" Steve says, a trace of his normal wryness bleeding into his voice through the bitterness. 

"What gives you that idea?" Tony pauses. "Hey, I'm not great with people, but I am a genius, so that's gotta count for something. Have you considered that maybe he'll come back after sorting through his own shit?" 

"It's just - I don't think he _can_ sort through his own shit," Steve says. "I'm worrying so much - it was always him worrying after me, back then. But after the war, after the last eighteen months - I thought I stopped when I moved out here. After I started doing things for _me_ , but I don't think I ever really let the worry go -" His voice grows thick and he has to stop talking. Wiping angrily at his eyes, he feels a hot rush of humiliation knowing that Stark will laugh at him, think him weak -

"He's a grown man, Cap," Tony says. His voice is gentle in a way that Steve hasn't ever heard before - is this him being understanding? Kind? He gets the feeling Satan might be buying ice skates. "He lasted for eighteen months on his own until he came to you. Dealing with seeing you, the memories that'd trigger when his mind's still patchy was probably half his shit, but I think the other half might have been you treating him -"

"Like a handler," Steve says miserably. 

"I was going to say like you were wearing kid gloves with him, because being coddled always bugged the shit out of me too," Tony says. "Come on, Cap. Get out of bed, go walk your dog, get a chick flick and a pint of Ben and Jerry's or some greasy food, actually yeah, greasy food is the better option here, come out to New York or something, clear all of that wholesome Midwestern bullshit out of your system, and _then_ you should let me install the biometric security -" 

"That's still a negative, but in the meantime, you could tell me where those other bugs are -" 

Tony laughs obnoxiously and hangs up. 

When it becomes obvious that Tony is not going to respond to any of his callbacks or texts, satisfied with filling his quota of do-gooding for the month, Steve tosses his phone aside and lies staring at the ceiling for perhaps thirty seconds, trying to let the misery drain out before he gets up to shower. 

He feels better. He also feels worse. Talking with Tony pulled the hope in him out from beneath the despair that avalanched and swallowed him the moment Bucky turned to leave. 

Hope is the most affirming, most treacherous feeling he's ever known.

 

~**~

 

_You live with the guy, got any pointers on where Tony makes a habit of hiding bugs while he's being concerned for his teammates?_ He texts Natasha that afternoon, after coffee, a shower, and three bagels with cream cheese and Zelda's homemade red pepper jelly. His metabolism, once he'd had the wherewithal to crawl out of bed, stretched and roared, clearly unaccustomed to going three days without nourishment beyond Clif bars and water. 

He's not expecting a serious response from Natasha, but moments later his laptop lights up. He hasn't touched the damn thing in a week.

The secure StarkTech video messaging program that comes pre-installed on all of his electronics (including, he thinks, his impossibly advanced oven) flashes up on the screen, and thirty seconds later when the connection is made, Natasha is staring icily at him through her StarkPhone front cam. 

"How bad did you fuck up."

"Am I interrupting something?" Steve stares at her, because from the angle he can tell she's in her Widow catsuit. Her hair's windblown and unless he is very much mistaken, that is a thin cut bleeding steadily beneath her left eye.

"I'm working," she says. "Tell me, what did you do?"

"Well, I did fuck up. And God help me, it was Tony Stark that showed me the light," Steve says dryly.

She groans, rolling her eyes. "We are both going to swear an oath to never tell him you said that."

"God, no," Steve says, horrified. 

By now Missy has caught on that Papa is talking to Favorite Sharp Human on the screen, and crawls all over him to stick her face close to the laptop. Natasha gives them the smirk that's a little softer, more fond. "Hello, Missy. So. what'd you do to make Boyfriend bail?"

"He's not my boyfriend, and he wanted to bail all along," Steve says. "It turns out that I was preventing him from doing so. And coddling. Maybe the coddling didn't -"

Natasha's face goes tense and irritated, her eyes flickering away from the camera. "Hold on a second -" and the view drops to the concrete barrier behind her. Before Steve knows what's going on she's pulled a gun and fired off a single round, suppressed by the silencer. There's a fleshy thud in the distance. "You said you were preventing him from going - were you giving him direct orders?" 

"Without realizing," Steve says. He still feels pretty shitty about it. Natasha's lips purse.

"That's standard," she says. "Kind of difficult to get over, but not impossible."

Hope flutters treacherously in Steve's chest before he can rein it back in. "You think?"

"I know." She holds his gaze for a second, before dropping into a more casual demeanor. "So you fucked up by being too sensitive and completely insensitive and Stark knows you're bent for the Winter Soldier because he spied on you. You want my advice?"

"Of course I do."

"You have people you can can talk to about this. _Professional_ people. You should go talk to them. Figure your own shit out before you fix his," she says. "....also, check the microwave. Air vents are too obvious for Stark, he likes to think he's subtle. Anything else new?"

"Cleaned up the back porch a little before I fucked up," Steve shrugs. "Also there are finally some tomatoes on the vines."

She smiles. "That sounds really - " A sharp bang of a door slamming into concrete echoes around her, and she rolls her eyes. "Well, the boss is back, I'll talk to you later." 

"Don't work too hard," Steve says, smiling.

"Oh, you know me, still gunning for that corner office," she smirks, and ends the call.

 

~**~

 

Admittedly, going to someone who is not within his circle of colleagues and friends is a little daunting. They don't know him, not really, but perhaps if they're a little more removed from the situation they'd offer more objective advice, which is what he needs right now. 

He'd like to know where to go from here without the shadow of who he is, or who Bucky was, hanging over him.

Zelda has her bowling league on Wednesday nights, which Steve feels pretty low about, but she waves him into her kitchen and pulls out a chair for him at the formica-topped table. 

"You need to talk, dear?" She sits opposite him, scooting her chair in. "And don't you worry about my bowling league, the girls can crush those Omaha City vultures without me. What's on your mind?"

Steve cracks a weak smile. "I've got so many problems, I don't even know where to start. It's gotten to the point where I can't talk to friends about it any more; I need a therapist." 

"Well, it just so happens you have a friend who is a therapist." Zelda laces her fingers together, resting her elbows on the table. Her gaze is steady, her very presence soothing. Steve can see why she was in the business for so long before retiring. "Start wherever you want to. Only share what you're comfortable sharing." 

Steve takes a breath, casting around in his thoughts wildly for anything that would stick, the most logical starting point for the compounded issues that have cropped up in his life. The most obvious one makes him a little leery, a little nervous to talk about still. 

It's gone unsaid for so long in his life; he can count on one hand how many times he's addressed it with other people. But he feels safe with Zelda. He trusts her. 

"Well, to begin with," he says slowly, trying to will his heart to stop pounding - it's stupid, he's leapt over raging infernos and explosions, been in firefights, and fought an army of space aliens, and this is what makes him anxious? "I've been in love with my best friend for my entire life." 

Zelda nods. "Grant, please forgive me for being presumptuous, but I'm going to assume that your best friend isn't that lovely young lady you had to visit a few weeks ago?" 

"No ma'am," Steve says. 

"Your friend Sam?" she prompts gently, and Steve shakes his head so quickly she must read something into it, because she leans over the table a little and puts one of her soft, warm hands over his. 

"Please know that when Rick and I married, interracial marriage was stigmatized with such impunity that it may as well have never been legalized in this neck of the woods. There is no judgment at this table or in this house, and there is nothing that you can say or do that will cause me and Rick to hold you in anything less than the highest regard." She squeezes his hand. "It's okay." 

Eyes downcast at the table, Steve takes a deep breath. "Thank you. I - thank you, Zelda."

"You're very welcome," she says softly. "So, tell me about your friend." 

It's so difficult to quantify his relationship with Bucky to someone on the outside, someone who doesn't know his history. But in a way, it's almost freeing. He explains how they grew up inseparable. He stresses that they were all each other had. For the first time in his life he shares the story of how when they were eighteen and drunk he kissed his friend and nearly jumped out of his skin when Bucky started kissing _back_ , when he'd been expecting a black eye for all his hopeless pining. 

Some details require glossing over, of course. He refers to Bucky as James. He leaves out dates, though he does explain that they were both veterans, the trauma of losing Bucky in the war -

"Which war?" asks Zelda mildly, eyebrows raised. Steve colors and concocts a lie about Afghanistan, which she seems to buy. 

"I thought he was dead," he says. "I thought - he died right in front of me. It was all I could dream about for the longest time."

"There's a 'but' in there," Zelda prompts. 

"But eighteen months ago I found out he's alive. He's still here but he's...different." 

"Post traumatic stress is so common among soldiers," Zelda says sadly, "and it changes people in the most unfathomable ways. And people who haven't served have no idea what it's like for you or for anyone who's been through what you've been through."

Steve shakes his head. "It's not just the PTSD. The event left him with amnesia, and there were...procedures done on him by the people who found him that made it worse. When I saw him a year ago, he didn't know me. He was hostile toward me." He pauses. "... _really_ hostile." 

"Oh, honey." Zelda's brow wrinkles. Her eyes are so sympathetic. "Would you like some carrot cake?" 

"Some - what?" Steve blinks, confused at the offer coming out of left field.

"Carrot cake," she repeats, which doesn't clarify things a bit. "This is a carrot cake session. I don't usually offer it to people who I'm listening to in a professional capacity, but you're just about family, so I think you need some carrot cake." 

She hacks off two fist-sized slices of carrot cake and pours them both a glass of milk. The cake is delicious. It's rich and moist, tasting of pineapple and clove, and the cream cheese frosting is just sweet enough. Steve's raw feelings are placated a little by the sheer caloric load as he eats and talks. 

He's in the middle of explaining, in vague detail, the nature of Bucky's amnesia and his behavior when Rick walks into the kitchen, wiping his hands on his jeans. "Oh, there you are Grant, Zel, I was wonderi - good Lord, carrot cake," he says, eyes growing wide when he sees the plates on the table. He immediately backtracks out of the house, apologizing. 

"Carrot cake's serious, huh?" Steve says, setting his fork down on his plate.

"The healing power of cake is not to be underestimated," Zelda says sagely. "So, you said that James came back to you - he had enough memory of you to know you were important to him, and found you. How did that make you feel?"

"Desperate, mostly," Steve says. "I didn't want to lose him again."

"No," she says, pushing her plate aside and leveling him with her gaze. "How did that really make you feel?" 

Steve blinks and swallows. "....Afraid."

"Afraid of what? Of him?" 

"A little bit," Steve admits. He had been, didn't want to acknowledge the fear. He'd dreaded thinking about how Natasha made him promise to take the shot if he needed to. "Yeah, I was... afraid of him, I mean. I think more importantly I was afraid of doing anything to...." He trails off, trying to go over those few days that Bucky had been in his house, trying not to think about the orders he was giving because that still makes him feel like vomiting a little. 

"I was afraid of taking action that might have pushed him one way or the other, so I just...tried for normalcy. I cooked. Tried talking to him. Kept him in the house and I." He clears his throat. "I'm not proud of that. I didn't know until I realized he wanted to leave and I wasn't letting him. So he left a few days ago and I haven't seen or heard from him since." 

Zelda leans back in her chair, exhaling slowly. "First, I'm proud of you for realizing how you tripped up and addressing it with him. Many people never get to that point and then wonder why the people they love end up leaving. Second, I think you underestimate the human capacity for forgiveness. Have you forgiven him for his hostility toward you, when you first saw him?" 

Steve nods. "Of course. It wasn't all...him, if that makes sense. I loved -" He corrects himself. "I _love_ him. It's not his fault, what happened to him."

"So you've forgiven him, which is good, and you want to help him, which is also good," Zelda muses aloud. Steve nods again. She continues, "Grant, I know you said you tried to talk to him. I assume he wasn't talkative?" 

"No," he says. "When I came back, I had a lot of resources to ease my transition back from the armed forces. Therapists, psychiatrists, a group of friends. James doesn't have anyone."

Her forehead crinkles thoughtfully. "I've got a hunch that his unwillingness to talk, especially if the psychological trauma he underwent was as bad as you said, is less not _wanting_ to talk and more not knowing _how_ to talk. Does he remember -" She halts herself, considering something. 

"I don't want to seem indelicate or prying, so please forgive me if this is - do you know if he remembers the relationship the two of you shared?" 

Steve chews his lower lip, poring over the interactions that he and Bucky had, the single long conversation early in the morning after Rumlow broke into Steve's house. "I'm not sure if he does or not. He probably doesn't." And God, if thinking about that doesn't feel like every single sock to the gut he'd suffered when he was little and couldn't throw a punch worth a damn. 

"But he knew, somehow, that you were important enough for him to find you," Zelda points out. "Maybe not the specifics, but that you _were_. Even if he left, that sort of thing stays with someone." 

"I hope so," Steve mumbles. 

Zelda's fingernails are painted coral and they tap-tap-tap at the formica tabletop as she turns something over in her mind. "Did you ever consider that maybe he was just as afraid as you? Imagine you're in his shoes: knowing someone is important enough to come back for, but not knowing why or how. He has amnesia. He couldn't trust his memories. It's not too much of a stretch to imagine that because of that he wouldn't trust you. The might even have translated into a fear of you." 

"I knew he was afraid of - of external factors. I never thought that he'd be afraid of me. Didn't think I gave him reason to." Not until he violated Bucky's trust by acting like a handler, at least. 

"We all carry a peculiar sort of fear of the people we're close to," Zelda says. "They have the potential to hurt us more drastically and more intimately than strangers do. But I think the most important thing that you and I need to focus on is that both of you and James were probably very afraid, both of the situation and of one another." Steve nods. "The good things: You've forgiven his actions and want to help him. He knows somehow that you're important to him. 

"The bad: Your fear of deviating from normalcy got in the way of you communicating with him, which culminated in your inability to keep his free will in mind, by keeping him in the house. His inability to communicate very likely lead him to become afraid, or at least distrustful of you, very likely exacerbated by your keeping him in the house. Unfortunately, I think the situation just compounded on itself until it reached a boiling point." 

Steve picks up his fork and pushes a smear of leftover frosting around his plate. The texture reminds him a little of wall spackle. "Well, at the risk of sounding dense...how do you think I should go about unboiling it? I'm kind of at a loss here." 

"I can't tell you," Zelda says flatly. Steve stares up at her, aware his mouth's hanging open. He's about to ask very stupid questions like, _well, what was the point of the therapy cake?_ when she holds up a finger and says, "Let me finish. Remember, my speciality is therapy for couples. _Couples_. I'm only getting one half of the perspective, and so I can only give you one half of the answer as it pertains to _you_. Make sense?"

"Yes ma'am," Steve says, feeling a little ashamed for jumping to conclusions.

Zelda surveys him with a critical eye, obviously turning something over in her mind before delivering her proclamation. Steve has to remember she's the expert, and a friend, and he values her opinion no matter what. Even if he doesn't like it he won't reject it outright. 

"My advice for you may seem a little contradictory, so bear with me. I know you're concerned about him, as you should rightfully be. I'd be worried about him too. But it seems to me that your reaction to his situation displays lack of regard for yourself."

Steve rubs the back of his neck. "I've been accused of that occasionally."

"Only occasionally?" Zelda raises a single eyebrow. "I think you need to take care of yourself before you can take care of someone else, and I think in order to do that you need to try and remove yourself from this situation like he did. A strategic retreat. Pull yourself out of the mindset that you've built and break it down, build something without the guilt and fear. Because it's not serving him, and it sure as hell isn't serving you. Remember what I said about the capacity for human forgiveness? It starts with forgiving yourself any mistakes you've made, Grant."

Gusting out a long exhale, Steve considers this carefully. He's never been good at strategic retreats, but this - it's kind of a relief to have someone else calling the shots, because if he tries to call them like this he'll end up a tangled mess. "You make it sound so easy."

Zelda stands, gathering up the plates and rinsing them under warm water in the sink. "It's not meant to be easy, Grant. What we have with the people we love wouldn't be worth it if it were easy."


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A vacation, some conversation, a revelation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who needs a break? Steve needs a break. 
> 
> My ninja OT3 snuck in here and I am absolutely not sorry.

Steve's missed New York so much he's not sure why he even left in the first place, even sitting in a yellow cab that takes forty five minutes to untangle itself from a snarl of traffic and get to Avengers Tower, a familiar blight on the skyline. 

He eats three hot dogs, two bagels, a pastrami on rye, and a gargantuan falafel over the course of the afternoon, and doesn't think he can manage anything more - super metabolism be damned - when Tony orders something like thirty pizzas from Steve's favorite joint in Brooklyn after shutting down everything even vaguely important in the top twenty floors of the Tower as soon as Steve walked through the door. 

"The prodigal son returns for his biometric security system!" he crows, throwing a wrench over his shoulder and shattering something expensive. Thirty seconds later Pepper yells at Tony for whatever he broke, and Clint steps out of the elevator wearing jeans and holding a coffee, which he drops when he sees Steve. 

It's like Steve never left.

As much as he's missed New York, his city, he thinks he might have missed the Avengers more. It was one thing when they were in his house, treating him while he was concussed - another entirely to laugh freely at Clint's jokes and digs about Nebraska, to grasp Bruce's hand when he finally emerges from his lab, to be lifted in a full body hug by Thor, who he expects to squeeze him, but instead puts him down, pats him on the shoulder and smiles broadly, claiming to be "glad for the welcome return of my steadfast friend." 

The pizzas arrive and there's cases and cases of beer that appear as if summoned by black liquor magic, oh yeah, Steve kind of forgot about the impromptu parties. He's never been on a cruise, but he's pretty sure Tony's stepped into some sort of honorary post as cruise ship festivities director. The communal floor fills up with people in the blink of an eye - Pepper kisses both of his cheeks, James Rhodes is pulled away from some sort of pending Air Force disaster ("Oh, pff, you're always dealing with those, they can survive without you for six hours," Tony scoffs) and hell, even Maria Hill is there when the party call goes out. 

There are people he's never met before - Doctor Foster, who he's heard nothing but glowing praise for from Thor, and her assistant Darcy, who Clint seems to have adopted as a kid sister. Steve stares at them and wonders who has the worse influence on the other. 

Tony orders JARVIS to "put on the party playlist, no, not that one, like, the third best one," and shoves a beer into James Rhode's hand, ignoring his splutters of protest, and the floor is suddenly filled with music and noise, like he remembers.

On her second beer, Darcy gives Steve a thorough once-over says, "Whoa, whoa, suddenly I really want to renew my voter registration." Steve fidgets and feels himself go very red under her scrutiny until Hill pulls him over by the pizza tables and starts talking about Pecos County and HYDRA bases and Rumlow under high security, still recovering from the Incident in Steve's basement. 

It all makes him feel very tired. 

Natasha's still working, but Hill assures him she'll be back by two in the morning. He doesn't think he'll make it that long. The only things keeping him awake are sheer doggedness and Thor's exuberance in insisting he join him in Playstation karaoke.

"What's the point of the damn serum if you can't stay up with your buddies?" Clint asks. He's playing beer pong with Jane and Darcy against a few of the grunts from R&D, who wandered in looking confused but stayed anyway. Obviously, even though Darcy is terrible at beer pong, the R&D guys are is losing horribly. 

"Still on Nebraska time," Steve says, "also I'm never booking a red eye again." There had been a screaming baby two rows in front and Steve usually loves kids, but the infant hadn't stopped squalling until they were over Indiana, and Steve hadn't thought to bring ear plugs.

"Do you hear the good Captain," Tony stage whispers. He, Pepper, and Bruce are holding down the couch, surrounded by paper plates blotchy with pizza grease. "He had to _book his own ticket_ , on an _airline_ so he could come out and _surprise us_ , is this what people do when they're not rich?"

"Quaint, right?" Bruce says wryly.

"God, I wonder how the rest of us manage?" adds Pepper, and Tony starts whining about the two of them ganging up on him, and how unfair it is, and how defenseless he is, when Thor finally talks Steve into a round of karaoke. They're both terrible. He enjoys himself immensely. 

 

At eleven his eyes are closing of their own accord, so he makes his excuses and bids his goodnights before beelining to the elevator. He has to step over one of the guys from R&D to get into it. 

He doesn't know what the guy was expecting, playing drinking games with superheroes. 

He hopes he still has his security clearances for his floor. It'd be really embarrassing if he had to go back up and ask for the key for the rooms Tony specifically built for him. 

Turns out, he can still get into his suite of rooms just fine, flicks the lights. Nothing has changed since he moved out to Nebraska - the furniture is the same, the art he picked is still on the wall. He's pretty sure if he looks the remote will be exactly where he left it, but there's not a speck of dust to be found and the windows are immaculately clean, revealing the glittering New York skyline beyond. 

Out of Nebraska, it's easier than he thought it would be to not think about what he's left behind. He misses his dog, but Emma's been sending him pictures of Missy roughhousing with her beagle mix, Bowser, so he's pretty sure that between two kids and three other dogs to keep her company Missy won't have the opportunity to get too lonesome. 

He strips, showers, washes the feeling of pizza grease and airplane off before crawling into his familiar-unfamiliar bed. He's travel-weary, an entirely different feeling from the labor-weary he's gotten used to. When he settles in he gazes up at the same square foot patch of ceiling he remembers spending countless nights staring up at, listening to the sounds of midnight traffic so distant they might as well come from another planet. 

He never thought that he'd call New York quiet. Without the sleepy drone of insects outside he feels disconnected from the world. As much as he's missed New York, he misses the house in a way he didn't think possible. Taking a breather was probably the best thing he could've done, he realizes. 

Feeling the pull of something in your heart after you leave it is a pretty good indicator that you're supposed to come back to it eventually. 

 

Natasha wakes him up at two in the morning by sitting on his knees and staring at him like a cat. 

Steve yanks his sheets up to his chin. "How'd you get in?" 

"Security clearances are more of a formality than a hard rule in the Tower," she says. "You weren't here the morning I nearly skewered Darcy for coming onto my floor to get a tampon because she didn't have one in her purse." 

Steve blushes. "Noted. I'll try to avoid breaking into your bathroom." 

Smirking, Natasha rolls off his legs, sprawling back on his bed. "Zelda give you some good advice?" 

"She gave me carrot cake and told me to deal with my own shit." 

"Mmm. I might be in the wrong business. I should be in cake and therapy." She rolls over, facing him. Steve's floor is so high up that the light from the street doesn't quite make it through the window, so her eyes are dark.

"Well, first she made me feel like an idiot and she made me come to some important realizations, so I think you're a shoe-in for the job. Then she gave me cake and told me I need to take care of myself before I can take care of anyone else. I came out to her," Steve blurts, staring at the ceiling. Natasha goes very still next to him. 

"How did that make you feel?" 

"See, you'll be a natural," he groans. "Better, I think. A little lighter." 

It's not the half of it. It felt like casting off a piece of an old life, one where he couldn't talk about his love. Even if it was to only one person, it's something he used to just...leave unsaid, and now it's out, it's something he doesn't have to hide if he doesn't want to....

He doesn't want to say he feels freer because, well, the jokes write themselves. 

"You've caught up with one of the more popular images of you, congratulations. Captain America, gay icon. " 

"Bisexual icon, technically." 

"Bisexual icon," she agrees. 

"Thank you. Does killing people usually make you this snuggly and talkative?" Steve asks, nudging her with his elbow. She arches an eyebrow. 

"I'll have you know work was a simple information heist. I didn't kill anyone, I broke their arm, hit their head on their desk, and hacked into their computer."

"My mistake, however will I apologize for my gross oversight?"

"By avoiding profiling of international assassins in the future, of course. We are very sensitive, delicate flowers. And speaking of, Clint is passed out in the living room surrounded by tiny ping pong balls, suffering a very acute case of Millerlitis. You'll have to do." 

Steve yawns. "I'm glad you trust me enough to not bring weapons onto my bed, but I'd very much like to go back to sleep." 

Natasha is quiet for a second. She reaches down and pulls a knife from her boot, and another one from the back of her pants. She sets them on his bedside table, kicks off her boots, and smiles at him. 

As he's falling back asleep, he thinks he can hear her saying, "I'm proud of you, you moron," but doesn't ask her about it in the morning. She'll deny it anyway. 

 

First thing in the morning Natasha drags him to the gym in the lower levels. She needs him less as a sparring partner and more as a second body to keep Clint upright until he works off the hangover. By nine the two of them are grappling on one of the mats. Steve's always enjoyed watching them work together, but he can tell Natasha is dialing back her skills in deference to Clint's pounding headache. That doesn't mean he won't be a little shit about it, not when Clint's skills are just plain sad in this state.

"It's like watching you fight a baby," Steve heckles from the side of the mat. Natasha and Clint look at each other and before Steve knows it he's dragged into the fray, two against one. Clint may be hungover, but Steve's out of practice, so the field is evened up nicely. 

"Thought you were in Pecos County," Steve says, dodging her elbow and a left swing from Clint at the same time. He feints, feels a strong arm come up and try to put him into a lock- that must be Clint - and rolls to the right.

"Easier to exterminate when the rats are running around with no idea what to do." Natasha's able to strike and dodge Steve's counters while talking, without even sounding winded. "Thought you were supposed to be at the Home Depot wringing your hands over paint colors for the upstair," she shoots back.

"Upstairs are painted already." Steve lets out a whuff of breath when Natasha manages to get the jump on him, her knees digging into his back. "Kitchen needs a new color, though."

"I like a classic white with a tile backsplash for a pop of color," is Clint's contribution. Both Steve and Natasha stop and stare at him, which gives Clint plenty of time to even the odds as they grapple and spar.

At the end of an hour he's hit the mat more times than he can count and feels a little hoarse from when Natasha got him in a chokehold. He hasn't had physical exertion past home demolition in weeks. Brilliantly, his mind feels a little emptier, while his nerves and muscles alight with the sheer pleasure of something mindlessly, physically draining. 

 

What no one told him about self-care is the amount of constant vigilance it requires. He finds himself more aware of his thoughts than he's ever been. Going over the morning Bucky left in his down time became a habit: During the days he spent alone and miserable afterward it was all he thought about, but now in the small dark hours in his bed he's quick to shut it down. _Break it down, rebuild it without the guilt and fear._

The guilt isn't so easily exorcised ( _forgiven_ ) but he knows he can work it off at the gym with Natasha, or else hang out in Tony's lab so the engineer's constant chatter pushes it from the forefront of his mind. Tony doesn't seem to mind the company; hell, he'd probably keep on talking if Steve wasn't even there.Tony rambles about everything from that damn security system to writing an algorithm for mimicking neurosensory feedback on the Iron Man suit to whatever he and Pepper have been watching on Netflix. 

Steve makes a habit of bringing a spare sketchpad into the lab and over the course of one afternoon fills a page with cartoon Tonys - working, standing next to a tiny Iron Man suit, with eyebrows singed off in an explosion. 

Tony halts mid-babble when the door opens and Bruce sidles in. There's an entire unspoken conversation between him and Tony conveyed primarily through eyebrows, but eventually Bruce shuts the door behind him. 

"May I?" he asks, coming up beside Steve. Steve shows him the cartoon Tonys. "Those are cute, except I know the profanity would be more blatant and creative with the little explosion." 

Steve grins and pencils in some black bars into the little unfilled speech bubble. 

"Little explosion? Cute? What have you been doing, Rogers?" Tony drops whatever schematics he's working on and hurries over. "Oh my god, those are abominations, those are nothing like me, don't encourage him, Brucie."

"I'll encourage him because it's high time someone depicted you as you really are," Bruce says, a shadow of a smile on his face. "Steve, could you draw a little Tony trapped in a bottle of scotch? Only if it's no trouble. I'd like it at my work station." 

"You traitor," Tony says dramatically as Steve laughs. "You wound me, Doctor Banner, I can't believe I let you -"

"Borrow my research notes?" Bruce interrupts. Steve's looking back and forth at them. He knows he's missing something, but can't say what yet. He suspects, though. "I'd like those back, by the way."

"Yeah, yeah, fine, whatever, you'll get them back after I'm done improving them," Tony waves him off. 

"Recent development?" Steve asks hesitantly, after Banner's left, muttering about Tony's "improvements" without much heat and rather a good deal of fondness. 

Tony whirls around, like he'd forgotten Steve was in the room. "Yeah. Yeah, it is." He rubs the back of his neck absently, and leaves smears of black grease. 

Steve darkens a pencil line, mulling things over. "Are the three of you happy?"

Making a noncommittal noise, Tony heads back to where his tools are all in a jumble. That's sign enough that Steve should drop it, and he does, except after Tony's picked up five different screwdrivers and set them back down he makes another noise. "I think so. I - yeah, I think so. Jesus, I never thought I'd be asking, but - you're not mad that I eavesdropped on you and Barnes, are you?"

Well, that's a little startling. Steve puts his pencil down, preparing to answer but Tony forges on ahead anyway. "When it was me and Pep, just us, public eye, I didn't care so much, we'd end up in the tabloids and on the best-dressed lists anyway, but with Bruce I - Well, I understand the need for -"

"Privacy?" Steve ventures. Tony stares at him.

" _Protection_ ," he says, a thread of desperation winding into his voice. "So I know I overstepped some boundaries there, and if you got mad, well, I'm sorry because - I get it. I _get it_ now." 

Steve stares at the sketchpad, the tiny graphite Tonys in rough caricature, then back up the flesh and blood Tony - flaws, grease smears, and all. Tony looks how Steve felt: Holding on as hard and fierce as he could, despite being unsure of what he's holding on to, what may or may not kill it. 

"I'm not mad," he says at last. "I thought I should've been at first, but I know you were being protective in your own weird way. It might have even been a good thing, in the long run."

"God, you are so glass-half-full it's kind of sickening," Tony says, tossing a ratchet from hand to hand. 

"Live through the Depression, nothing phases you," Steve shrugs. "Except I'm not telling Clint you bugged his microwave, he'll be pissed." 

"I bugged your disgusting pantry too," Tony says absently, rifling through the socket attachments for his wrenches. "Like there is no excuse for that pantry."

"I've been trying to ignore that the pantry exists. If I ignore it hard enough it'll clean itself up."

"Thought nothing phased you?" Tony shoots back, and Steve chuckles, picking up his pencil again.

They leave each other alone with their thoughts for the better part of ten minutes, silence in the lab only broken by the scritching of Steve's pencil and the metallic click of hand tools. 

"Hey Cap?" 

"Yeah, Tony?" 

"We're a bunch of messed up sons of bitches, you know that?" 

Steve turns a page in his sketchpad and starts sketching out a bottle that takes up most of the page. "If you're looking for therapy, I know a lady. You like carrot cake?" 

 

It's not all sparring and heart-to-hearts and beer pong. There's something Steve's been putting off, and when Maria Hill knocks on his door at eight the next morning he knows he can't put it off any longer. 

There's no cell service underneath SHIELD's New York division branch. No daylight, no sound. Only the distant echoes of doors slamming and voices so distorted by distance, the words are unintelligible above the fluorescent buzz of the overhead lights.

Rumlow's held in the highest of high-security cells. "He's been sedated for the past few weeks, mostly," Hill says, handing him a dossier stuffed with medical jargon. "It makes interrogation difficult, but from what we know -"

"He was acting alone, separate from HYDRA," Steve finishes. "He told me while he was villain showboating."

"Showboating, huh?" Maria's impressively blank Work Facade cracks ever so slightly and Steve can see a ghost of amusement, but then she's back to business. "You can imagine we're in a bit of a pickle figuring out what to do with him." 

"What to do with him?" Steve repeats, incredulous. "Maximum security for the rest of his life isn't simple enough?" 

Maria swipes the dossier back. "He's a HYDRA agent. A loyal one. And one unhinged enough to present a real problem if he were to end up busted out by HYDRA."

Steve picks up the loose end she's dangling for him. "...and he's got an ax to grind with Captain America if that ever happened."

Maria nods. "For what it's worth, you really did a number on him. When he's been lucid enough for interrogation he talks about the asset - "  
Steve begins to sweat.   
" - But I continually assure him there was no asset in that basement, just him and you." 

Steve blinks at her. 

"And the dog," she adds helpfully. "Feel like talking to him? I know interrogation isn't your bit but perhaps there's something you have that we haven't thought to ask. When I said you'd be coming down the the docs backed off his painkillers enough for him to be lucid."

"No," Steve says immediately. In some way he supposes he should feel grateful to Rumlow for bringing Bucky back to him albeit in a way that he never, ever wants to repeat again - but the bastard was going to shoot his dog and kill him. Rumlow would've been gunning for Bucky, after he'd pulled Steve's house down on top of him and set it afire. 

Steve doesn't enjoy pointless violence, but there's nothing he has to say to Rumlow that he couldn't say with another kick to the face. 

"Are you sure?" Hill's brow is carefully, blankly neutral. "I don't want to ask you as a favor, but - you might get him talkative. We're kind of desperate, here." He gets the distinct impression that maybe she's a little disappointed, but she hides it very well. 

He thought he was supposed to be the one with all the righteous disappointment here. 

"Five minutes," Steve relents, dreading every single second of it. 

 

It's warm in Rumlow's room, and there's only one sound to differentiate it from the silent outside corridors: The steady beep-beep-hiss of medical equipment, drips and monitors, that crowd around the hospital bed. 

Steve can't help but notice that nearly everything is plastic, no metals save for the IV needles taped to the back of Rumlow's scarred hand. Rumlow himself is strapped to the bed. Biometric locks secure the bonds. 

Under the bright pale lights of the hospital cell, Rumlow doesn't look ruthless, not like the sharp SHIELD agent Steve worked with, and not the scarred operative with the unsettling smile who broke into his house, threatening to set Steve's whole world aflame. On the hospital bed he looks crumpled somehow, almost grey. 

Steve isn't fooled, and he's no less on guard: An enemy down isn't an enemy beaten.

When he stands next to the bed Rumlow's eyes flutter open. It takes him a moment to place Steve but when he does hazy awareness bleeds into his eyes. 

"Captain," he says, dipping his head in a sarcastic nod. 

"Rumlow," Steve replies. "Just Rogers is fine, as I'm not a Captain, currently. I told you I got out." 

"You're standing by my bed in a SHIELD facility," Rumlow points out. His voice drips syrup-thick and slow, heavy with tranquilizing drugs. "I think you're still in whether you like it or not." He closes his eyes again, tilts his head back so he'd be staring at the ceiling if they were open. 

A few moments of silence pass, and Steve is just starting to wonder if Rumlow's fallen asleep when he says, "I was going after the asset next."

Steve feels his jaw tighten, his pulse skyrocket, but tries to reel himself back in. "What do you want with him?" 

Rumlow makes an awful noise. Only after a few startling moments does Steve register that it's laughter. "Bullet in the head. HYDRA's got no use for a mad dog running left and right after it slipped its lead. Order, now, there's no...no order in that." 

"Nothing personal about you going after him?" Steve says, trying not to let the cold fury seep into his voice. Rumlow looks at Steve, grins. Knowing that Rumlow's getting to him and he knows it, Steve takes a step back from the bed, feeling a little sick. 

Rumlow laughs again, closing his eyes The IV machine at his right drips slow and steady, flooding a stream of sedatives into Rumlow's system that's all but negated the need for restraints on the hospital bed. "Got the feeling if I had killed you, that would've made it personal...if it had a personality to begin with. It'd have been a lot easier to find if I had burned your house down."

"Yeah?" Steve says. He doesn't know how many cards he can play, which ones to keep close to his chest, and doesn't know if Rumlow will even remember this conversation later due to so many drugs seeping into his system. "What makes you say that?" 

There's a slow and silent pause. Steve can't tell if it's for dramatic effect, or because Rumlow's hazy brain is taking its time searching through catalogs of memories. 

"It knew you," Rumlow says at length. Steve's face must reflect his confusion, because the man on the bed chokes out a mirthless chuckle. 

"Information irrelevant to its mission. It recognized you. Said it knew you....we wiped it, after that. It was erratic, no precision. No control. Then Insight happened and the whole world fell to shit," Rumlow says. He glances over at Steve, a shadow of the grin he wore in Steve's basement on his dry lips. "It screamed like I'd never heard...during the wipe. It never used to scream before." 

"Stop," Steve says. Everything in him's screaming like Rumlow said that Bucky did, because Bucky is the Winter Soldier is Bucky - a human being, a person, not an item, a tool, a dog, an _it_. 

Between this information, Rumlow's knowing twisted lips, and a rage he can only remember feeling once before, processing everything that happened once he got off a train seventy years ago, his head is spinning. He needs to get out of that room, before he says or does something he'll regret. "We're done now." 

He's halfway out the door, not quite seeing red but it's a very close thing, when he hears Rumlow's voice weak, but steady, from behind him.

"If you think this is over, Captain, you are very much mistaken." 

Steve shuts the door and hears the electronic locks engage. He doesn't look at Hill, who he knows overheard the entire conversation, who can pull up the video surveillance any time she wishes. Escorting him back upstairs, she doesn't say anything, but grips his hand firmly in a handshake before he leaves.

 

~**~

 

"I'm starting to take Tony's side," Steve says at dinner that night, pushing takeout around its carton with a set of chopsticks. The Avengers have been giving him a wide berth since he got back that afternoon except for Thor, who had looked at him with solemnity and gripped his shoulder hard enough to bruise, and for Bruce who said, "Feel like talking?" without looking up from his notes, giving Steve an easy out. Steve took it. 

"Either you're starting to think like Tony or he's starting to think like you, and I don't know which is the more frightening option," Pepper says, and everyone except Steve laughs at Tony's outraged little noise. 

He just frowns into his lo mein. "I'm starting to think we'd be saved a whole lot of trouble if you had just let Rumlow bleed out in my basement." 

"Leave the not-murder-technically-murder to us professionals." Clint gestures with his own chopsticks, sobering up somewhat. "Can't tarnish your image, dude, you're supposed to be all clean-cut and shit." 

"I do not think that there would be much the good Captain could do that would cause his image to be wholly besmirched," says Thor gravely. "And were drastic measures necessary for the greater good, any enemies of his would have me, at his side, to deal with."

"Well, really, it's only Grant Robertson's image that'd be tarnished if the police found a body somewhere on the farm, seeing as how Captain America is taking a little bit of a break," Steve says, feeling a little ridiculous talking about murder but also grateful - in a weird way - that an Asgardian prince volunteered to be his accomplice in committing violent acts against Rumlow. "I'm not gonna kill anyone at this point in time, but thank you, Thor." 

"Speak nothing of it, friend." 

The look Clint and Natasha are exchanging is despairing. "Grant Robertson?" Clint asks.

"Someone needs to teach the poor boy how to come up with a proper deep cover alias," Natasha says with a note of pity, reaching for another pork bun before Thor can spirit away the entire carton. 

It's a slow night. No calls, no pending emergencies, no stockholder meetings to be out of town for. Whether leagues of villains know that the Avengers are back together in their entirety, or because the universe at large picks up on that Steve is tired and needs a breather, nothing happens, and even the Avengers give him some space - save for Natasha, who sits on the opposite side of his couch as they all watch Firefly (which Tony, Clint, _and_ Bruce had insisted he'd love). 

They get through the first three episodes and he's a little surprised to find that he is enjoying it, after all. Science fiction pulls him out of his head as much as it can; makes his own life seem a little less outlandish in comparison, and he's enjoying the dynamic of the ship's crew in the show (though he does frown a little at Jayne being Jayne). By the middle of the fourth episode Thor has left to be with his own Jane, and by the end Clint and Natasha have peeled away, yawning. 

By the time the fifth episode opens, Steve glances over to realize Bruce has nodded off with his head on Tony's shoulder. Pepper's against his side, scrolling on her phone with one hand, carding her fingers through Bruce's hair with the other. Tony must catch the movement out of his peripheral because he looks up to Steve, then over at Bruce and Pepper, and smiles, shrugging with one shoulder so he doesn't upset the doctor. 

It makes him remember what Tony said in the lab - _protection_ , which in turn makes him think of Rumlow, a promise of unfinished business. 

"I think I'm gonna turn in too," he says quietly, so as not to wake Banner, positive he'll lack ability to focus on the exploits of the _Serenity_ 's crew any longer. On the couch, Pepper wishes him a quiet, "Sleep well" and Tony waves him off in typical Tony fashion.

While showering, he tries not to replay the conversation in his head, tries not to think about how much easier life would be if he'd had let Rumlow bleed out. Pulling the covers back and laying in bed, he tries not to think of Bucky screaming under HYDRA's hands. 

He's pretty good at doing the exact opposite of things that he's tried not to do. 

Steve rolls to his side, missing the comforting warmth of his bed-hogging dog. Sleeping isn't easy that night, but Steve's in luck: His teammate happens to be an insomniac and never asks questions when Steve shows up in his lab at 3 in the morning unannounced.

 

~**~

 

For the rest of his stay Steve tries do to as little as possible. Clint and Darcy rope him into playing X-Box, but draws the line when Darcy pulls out something called Let's Dance. Thor asks after Missy frequently, and always beams whenever Steve pulls out his phone to show him pictures and videos. Clint and Natasha monopolize his mornings to spar. He talks with Tony in the lab, or they remain in companionable silence. He draws the cartoon Tony trapped in a scotch bottle for Bruce, and on a whim, puts in a tiny Pepper sitting on the bottlecap, blowing a kiss. 

He learns things about them that he never knew before, never cared to find out. Pepper is allergic to strawberries, which unfortunately he discovers with the fruit salad he makes after visiting the local farmer's market one Saturday morning. Clint is an accomplished yogi, and can contort in ways that he thought only Natasha and plastic crazy straws capable of. Darcy is a stress smoker, which Jane abhors. 

One afternoon he joins Thor on the couch to discover he's watching the home shopping channel and asks about the infomercial products, thinking the Asgardian prince is simply entertained by the useless doodads he enjoys ordering.

To his great surprise, Thor looks a little shifty. "I am aware that the others think my fondness for the information commercials are an indication of a simple mind," he says. "Do not tell Tony Stark and Clint Barton that I find the items you Midgardians invent for convenience quaint and entertaining in their somewhat primitive design, and enjoy collecting them for the great amusement they bring."

"Your secret's safe with me," Steve says, and watches as, through JARVIS, Thor orders a contraption that makes soda pops at home because it is "daft and needless."

Nobody talks about Bucky, which Steve appreciates more than he can say. In a tower full of superheroes such big personalities come with so much baggage, he figures - they're all respectful of not standing on each other's toes about their respective secrets. 

Except, of course, for the elephant in the room that is a Stark. 

But surprisingly, over the course of his stay in New York, Tony very pointedly does not push the biometric security system, even though Steve's sure there have been at least three hundred and eighty-six opportunities for him to twist Steve's arm into getting it installed. No, Tony is a craftier tactician than Steve originally gave him credit for: All he needed to do was sit and wait, because one particular evening (after watching _Serenity_ , which Steve absolutely cried at, thank you), he lingers in the common room with Steve after everyone's left, frowning at his tablet and prodding at diagrams until they cooperate.

Steve's hesitant to go to bed like the rest of the group: Sleeping has been even harder than usual since he let Rumlow's words slide insidious and heavy into his head. He's not _afraid_ , but he's cautious, and he balks at the idea of letting himself get caught with his guard down again. 

Which is why he clears his throat. "So uh," he says. "I was thinking." 

"Yeah? You're pretty good at that. Not as good as me, of course, but different different strokes for different folks, I'm sure you're better at composing soulful poetry and musing on the beauty of flank defense maneuvers than me, but anyway..." Tony trails off, frowning at the stream of data on the screen. 

"Well, I should be offended by that but we'll get to that later," Steve begins. "I was thinking about the security system, Tony. I'd like it installed in my house." 

Dropping the tablet into his lap, Tony looks up at him with surprise and a wolfish sort of technological pleasure writ all over his face. "Do you now? Took you long enough, I was thinking you'd ask me on my deathbed. Or your deathbed. Would you even have a deathbed?" 

Uncomfortable with musing on the nature of his mortality, Steve attempts to keep the conversation on its rails. "I'd like it very much. As soon as possible, when I get back." 

Tony's eyebrows climb to his hairline. He's trying to hide how much he wants to grin, probably in victory, and doing a very poor job of it. Steve sighs. "I'd appreciate it a lot," he says. "And I think the rest of you would appreciate it if I didn't have call you out at three in the morning with a concussion again." 

"No, I get it," Tony says. Even though he's grinning, Steve gets a canny feeling Tony's thinking about the people _he_ loves. How he'd protect them. "Okay, so, the system - no fancy bells and whistles? I'm gonna assume you don't want cams because you're like, 'Oh I like my privacy' in the age of satellites -"

"No cameras, please."

"So that's just gonna give you the perimeter alarm, which will put out a distress call to us and to whatever powers you feel will defend Captain America whenever it's tripped or when the verbal panic button's pressed." Tony picks up his tablet again, pulling up a new project and already tinkering with it. 

"Program Sam Wilson in there, please," Steve says firmly. He trusts the Avengers and Sam implicitly, even Maria Hill - but organizations he's a little less enthused about. He's not sure he wants SHIELD constantly on the peripheral, even if it's for his own safety. 

Tony makes a note of that. "Super, that's great, I can take care of that other schematic later....Okay, you're not gonna like this, but congratulations, you're gonna get to babysit JARVIS's baby brother." 

"Which of them, sir?" JARVIS interjects smoothly into the conversation. Steve forgets, unless Tony is actively conversing with him, that the entire tower is run by a bodiless voice. 

"Not MALLCOP, he's a little too beefy, we want someone a little younger and dumber who's only gonna go ET and call home if Cap here says the magic words."

"Tony, I didn't want a robotic butler with my kitchen appliances, and I don't want a robot butler in my house with the security system," Steve groans. He's starting to wonder if maybe he shouldn't have brought this up. 

Tony levels him with a Look that could destroy entire galaxies. "For the last time, JARVIS is - "

"I am an AI, Captain Rogers, not a robot," JARVIS says, somehow less testily than Tony. "Sir, may I suggest the AI offshoot you deemed 'Keep It Simple Stupid,' for basic security functions?" 

"KISS? Well, Steve wants to keep hearth and home safe, not order pizza and manage his DVR and stocks at the same time."

"I feel like that's grossly oversimplifying JARVIS and what he's capable of," Steve says. Tony jabs a finger at him. 

"Don't you go flirting with my AI under my very nose, otherwise I'll code jealousy into KISS and that won't be fun for any of us," he says. "Anyway, where were we, we were somewhere good, there's KISS, and then there's - okay, lock integration, no retinal scan, yadda yadda, man, give me the supplies and I could get this done in a few hours, six at the most, this is gonna be fun." 

"Fun?" Steve repeats, skeptical.

"Yeah, it's gonna be simple but also tons of fun, like fingerpainting - like I kinda want to go do it now -"

"Tony, don't go do it now."

"Well, maybe not _right_ now," Tony concedes, "I gotta go wake KISS up and massage the system's functions into him - okay, an eight hour job, if that." 

Steve shakes his head, before he gets up to go to bed. Long ago he learned that Tony's New Project Mania is an unstoppable juggernaut, halted only by impending disaster or lack of coffee and green smoothies. "Is there anything else you need from me?" 

"Yeah, yeah, stay out of my hair while I'm making this awesome for you," Tony says distractedly, poking at his tablet and completely ignoring Steve now. "Do your weird threesome wrestling thing with Mr. and Mrs. Smith in the morning, go to the AMNH, they've got a new dino exhibit so you'll feel right at home, go get some greasy diner food - I don't care, just let me make you some awesome tech." 

When Steve leaves the common room, wondering what his life even is, Tony's already asking JARVIS to put some coffee on. He just feels a little disappointed that he doesn't have an open lab to go wait out his insomnia in, not while Tony's on an all-nighter.

 

~**~

 

On one hand Steve can count the number of good ideas that Tony Stark has had - good, effective ideas, more along the lines of flying a bomb into an inter-dimensional wormhole, not the Would Stark Tap That app for StarkPhone. 

Greasy food was one of Tony's better suggestions. Going to the diner in Brooklyn that he and Bucky used to haunt...well, that was all him.

Steve sips acrid coffee at the diner counter, waiting on the largest plate of scrambled eggs and bacon they'd let him order and pancakes the size of hubcaps. 

It's early enough that the diner regulars are bellied up to the counter, exchanging quiet, sleepy small talk in that Brooklyn cadence he's so missed as the orders fly out from the griddle and the world outside the sheet glass windows grows brighter, waking up. There's something calming about being awake before the rest of the world, something that makes you more aware and assured of your place in it. 

The whole joint smells of bacon and buttered toast and the traffic is a constant dull roar outside. The waitress, a redhead with an eyebrow piercing, refills his cup with volcanic coffee and smiles at him maybe a little hopefully. Not a Brooklyn native, then. He murmurs gratitude, piling milk and sugar into the cup to cut the bitter taste. 

He grew up drinking cheap New York coffee, stretched with chicory and scorched peas and God knew what else to make it cheap, even though sometimes it was barely palatable. By the time the War started he'd gotten used to drinking his coffee bitter and watered down, and the sugar and coffee rationing only enforced that. 

Now, sitting in this greasy spoon two stools down from his regular spot in the forties, he can not only have as much real coffee as he wants, but put as much sugar in it as he likes. It's one of those little things about the future, monumental after he'd first gotten out of the ice, that maybe he was starting to take for granted.

And maybe - maybe that's how it was for Bucky, he realizes as the waitress sets the platter of eggs and pancakes down in front of him, asking if he wanted ketchup or syrup or extra butter. Maybe the sudden option of having as much sugar as he wanted after lifetimes of bitterness was as overwhelming for him as it had been for Steve.

But Bucky didn't have anyone to coach him through it, to tell him that he could spoon sugar into his coffee in the morning, and keep on piling it in if he wanted to. He didn't have the option of going to SHIELD psychiatrists three times a week to talk things out. HYDRA probably didn't give Bucky a 24-hour hotline to call if he was feeling out of sorts, out of place, out of time. 

And Bucky didn't have any friends to lean on, now. He didn't have a Sam to give him wise and earnest advice. There was no Tony to make Bucky laugh and snap out of it. He didn't have a Natasha, a Clint, a Bruce. He didn't even have a Thor, god bless him, to mail him a "quaint and primitive" Sticky Buddy. He didn't have a wonderful neighbor in Nebraska that could dish out no-nonsense advice. He didn't have a gassy, brilliant, adorable dog. 

All he had was his patchy memories, his fear, and Steve. And Steve had dropped the damn ball on that one, so wrapped up in his own issues he didn't even know the ball was in his court.

If Bucky comes back - big if, considering he's had enough radio silence to warrant him conceding to the security system, but that hope has been stoked in him again....if he comes back now Steve knows he's maybe a little better equipped. A little less blind. He doesn't know what he'd say or do, but in his bones Steve knows if he's given that fourth chance, he'll do everything within his power to help. 

Because it's nothing like when it was just the two of them being young and dumb and in love, visiting this diner in Brooklyn. Steve has a support system telling him it's okay to sweeten the coffee. Bucky just has Steve. 

He cuts into his pancakes, salts and peppers his eggs, drinks his sweet coffee, and prays that Bucky will be able to someday taste more of the sweet than the bitter.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Constants and variables.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A thousand apologies for the wait between chapters. I promise the wait for chapter 9 will be nowhere near as long as the wait for chapter 8 (I think I set a new personal record in Not Updating, which is not a Good Thing).  
> In happier news, I am working on a playlist for this which should be posted along with chapter 9. And for those interested, [here](http://www.pinterest.com/shieldwitch/in-the-summer-all-the-lights-would-shine/) is a pinterest board with visuals for this 'verse - the tech, the house, and most importantly, the dog. 
> 
> I hope this chapter is worth the wait for you patient folks. Thank you, and enjoy. ♥

Steve shivers in the cab of the truck until the heater kicks on, one hand on the steering wheel and the other cradling the phone to his ear. The highway out from the airport is a slick black ribbon dotted here and there with puddles of rainwater. Not five minutes after pulling out of the parking lot he had to turn on the windshield wipers to stave off the fine mist clouding the glass.

"I'm still upset," he announces when Tony picks up the phone on its fortieth or so ring.

"That makes three of you," Tony says flippantly. "Only I'm not screwing you, Rogers."

Steve transfers the phone to speaker so he can drive with both hands, bracing the truck against the blustery gusts that batter the cab and send the dying fields around the highway shuddering. The night smells like wet Tarmac and damp leaves. "Charming. And thank God for that."

"I'm offended," Tony says, filling in the empty space as Steve concentrates on driving, "both that you said that and felt the need to take off back to Hooterville after I did you a favor. A _favor_!"

"Yeah, by taking off at three in the morning." The audacity of Starks never fails to amaze him, even after seventy years. That he asked for the system is immaterial at this point; he thinks he's pretty justified in being upset. "Tony, just so we're clear: there is a difference between installing a security system while I'm there and taking off in the middle of the night without saying anything, worrying Pepper and Bruce half to death, to break into my house."

"I knocked first!" Tony protests. "That counts, right?"

"Only if I'm there to hear it and let you in." Steve sighs, easing his foot back off the gas pedal so he's no longer going eighty on the wet road. The headlights cut bright swaths through the darkness. 

"Romanov gets to break in all the goddamn time," Tony shoots back, a hint of petulance creeping into his tone. 

"Because she doesn't fuck around with his stuff!" comes Clint's voice, very faint and very angry in the background on Tony's end. "And she doesn't _bug his goddamn microwave_!"

"That was _one time_ , Katniss!" Tony snaps away from the mouthpiece. He moves back closer to his phone's speaker. "So that's four people mad at me."

"I'd be more sympathetic if I weren't currently worrying if my house is still in one piece." 

"I just installed the system, I didn't weaponize anything or link the house to JARVIS." There are a few moments of very telling silence. "...well, the temptation was there. Also, you might really want to check on that gross pantry, I'm pretty sure you could start breeding sentient life forms in it."

Steve sighs. "And that's why I'm back here instead of yelling at you alongside Bruce and Pepper."

"Oh no," Tony says brightly. "No, only Pepper yelled. Bruce is just giving me the silent treatment, which, we all agreed, is probably the healthiest for all of us. I really would rather not know how unhappy the Other Guy is with me right now."

 

~**~

 

When he pulls up into drive, overgrown with weeds in his absence, unconsciously he releases a little sigh at the house's familiar outline, looming dark against the overcast night sky. Inside it's cold and a little stuffy in that particular way that houses left unaired tend to be, and a layer of dust's accumulated over most of the flat surfaces. He's never noticed before, but there's a distinct smell of new paint discernible only because he's spent so long away.

Once the thermostat is at a more comfortable temperature he heads straight for the more pressing matter: a shiny new StarkTech panel discreetly positioned next to his bookshelf. He notices, with equal degrees of fondness and exasperation, that there are equations and measurements drawn into the dust on the bookshelf below the panel. It's a matte platinum shade, about the size of a credit card. It's probably the least obtrusive piece of Tony's tech he's seen, which is probably a blessing. 

But because Tony is Tony, and nothing if not obtrusive, there's also a Post-It note in his engineer's scrawl next to the panel: _Please treat KISS nicely he is your responsibility now and JARVIS and I will be checking in. XO Tony PS pantry is still disgusting please for the love of god fix it before you give yourself food poisoning I can't have that on my conscience PPS I removed the bugs you're welcome ___

__And on the back, because he ran out of room on the front and presumably forgot, is _PPPS - Voice activated.__ _

__He half expects KISS to start mouthing off at him when he peers at it and says, feeling very stupid, "Uh - hi?"_ _

__Something behind the panel gives a little flare of light. Steve takes that as indication he's supposed to touch it - and the moment his fingertip presses against the panel the light flares brighter and there's a distant double-beep that he takes to mean his signature is recognized._ _

__"Disarm?" He says tentatively, and there's another double-beep for _affirmative._ And that's it._ _

__Of course there's the little trail Tony left when he went snooping through the house, which also sparks that strange sort of fond annoyance in Steve. Cabinet doors are left slightly ajar and the contents of Steve's fridge have all been moved precisely three inches to the left, which Tony probably thought was hilarious. Steve shakes his head, goes to rearm the system with a simple command - Keep It Simple Stupid, indeed - and trudges upstairs._ _

__There's a brief moment of shock when he realizes autumn snuck up on him without him even consciously realizing, as soon as he pulls on his regular thin cotton pajama bottoms and immediately knows they won't be warm enough. He swaps them for thick flannel and falls asleep feeling warm, finally feeling safe enough in his house._ _

____

 

~**~

 

Missy all but mauls him, weeks of absence made up for in the way she frantically covers his hands and arms with slobbery kisses. A lump inconveniently lodges itself in his throat when she makes high-pitched yelps of glee, and he has to sit down right in the middle of Emma's driveway so she doesn't bowl the both of them over. Missy all but contorts herself to get into his lap, licking his face, his hands, any skin she can reach. 

"I think someone missed her daddy," Emma calls from the front step of her duplex, shielding her eyes against the golden sunset. Behind her closed screen door three more dogs dance and step on each other, all in a dither over the visitor and the noises Missy's making. "How was New York?" 

"Quiet," he says. Her face cracks into a grin, which he finds himself returning, suddenly struck with the feeling that he's home. 

(He wonders when he began thinking of the house in Nebraska as _home_. Not his old apartment in Brooklyn, nor Avengers Tower. Home is the walls he's knocked down and built up, the scent of paint and Missy's tags jingling.)

It takes less than two days for Steve to adjust back to living in the house, the quiet of the fields. The silence is jarring after living with his teammates - his _friends_ again for weeks on end, clearing isolation out of his system. Now it's a comfortable, homey sort of silence, the way he remembers the apartments he and Bucky shared in Brooklyn whenever Bucky was off at work, with the monotonous clicking of their single alarm clock and the staccato drip of the leaky faucets. This silence doesn't echo with his failures any more.

He gets the feeling that Zelda would be proud of him for that. _He's_ proud of himself for that. 

During his vacation the spiders began to plot and made their first moves to reclaim lost territory; Steve knocks the webs down with the hose again and hunts all over creation for a natural repellant to keep them out. 

And yeah, Tony was right about the damn pantry, so he takes a hammer to its shelves and tries not to miss the gym and Clint's half-sarcastic home decor tips too much while he's tearing the thing apart. He seals the cracks in the walls and floorboards. He paints it. He installs a new light fixture, one that doesn't buzz threateningly whenever he pulls the cord. He installs new shelves, and then feels stupid when he doesn't even have enough food in his cabinets to warrant having an entire finished pantry.

He winds up outside of the big box food stores in Omaha that Tony and Clint insist are the Modern American Way, where he buys flat packs of organic tinned soups, a tin of imported olive oil as big as his head, huge boxes of granola bars, oatmeal, instant mashed potatoes and more dried fruit than he think he'll ever be able to eat, super metabolism be damned. 

Rick and Zelda contribute to the Fill the Pantry cause with mason jars of homemade zucchini relish and tomatoes stewed whole with basil and garlic, and a delicate little half pint jar of last year's cherry preserves from the bounty the tree at the back of their property yielded. 

"Well, it's not quite apple pie filling," Zelda says on Friday, when he's over for dinner, "but we hope you'll enjoy it all the same."

That's a little out of left field, Steve thinks. He raises his eyebrows, pushing late-harvested summer squash around his plate with his fork. "Seems a little early for apple pie."

"You just seem like a man who can appreciate the American classics." Zelda smiles brightly at him, while Rick clears his throat and reaches for the pitcher. "More iced tea, Grant?"

That weekend he moves on from the pantry (now filled), to the porch (long in need of some TLC). He intends to give it some, maybe just a little structural support and a good sanding down before the weather turns too much, for now when he's outside he has to wear one of the flannel button-ups over his t-shirts; the breezes gone cool and gusty though the sun still shines. 

He starts early on Saturday morning. Rotten boards he pulls up and tosses aside to be culled. He drives to the hardware store, at this point so familiar that the paunchy owner behind the counter knows him by (assumed) name and always has a milkbone set aside for Missy.

Working on the house is familiar, comfortable, for all it's hard labor. For the past five months it's been the one constant, a solid beacon to catch his eye on even when he's lost in shifting tides of conflict and guilt and hurt and - 

Steve's hand slips and instead of the nail he brings the hammer down on his thumb, the explosion of pain making him holler and swear loudly, jolting Missy awake from her nap on the bottom step. The flesh beneath the nail is inflamed red and angry, excruciatingly tender, but by the end of the day that shiner of a bruise is gone, only residual tenderness beneath his nail the only indication he'd had a mishap. 

Barring that, Steve thinks as he puts his toolkit away, the house is the manifest of his happiness. Despite mice in the old oven and busted pipes and bruised thumbs, it's something physical he can reach out and touch to remind him that he's alive, he's well, he's doing something for him. 

His life as Captain America will always loom, heavy with duty and the work that needs to be done, and Captain America will always bring threat to Steve Rogers' door. But Steve Rogers needs this, same as he needs to serve and protect. And it feels good to work on it again, to return to something he knows is solid and constant. It also feels good to shower, heat up one of those organic soups, and barely make it upstairs before he falls asleep, Missy crowding him off the bed and snuffling soft into his side.

 

~**~

 

Four-fifty-eight in the morning, and he's awake before he realizes what's woken him up. For a second his entire body goes cold in terror - memories of the last time he woke like this have fired too many of his nightmares, but when he hears the triple beep again, he relaxes minutely. Security system. He's safe. 

Triple beep - unrecognized biological signature(s) within perimeter. Steve yawns, sitting up.

It's probably just the garbage man, come to collect the can from the end of the drive, but he'll have to do the palm print reading to disarm the system from self-alarming at that particular biological signature again. Or something. Tony could have written an operator's manual or something, instead of the vague instructions he gave Steve (a wave of his hand and "you'll figure it out" over a video message).

Missy's nails click on the kitchen floor behind him. The sky through the windows is a steely sort of predawn blue, and it's light enough out that Steve will let her out so she can relieve herself before they go back to bed - but when they're in front of the door and full palm-scanning panel, she switches to high alert, ears pricked forward. 

"What's up, little girl?" he asks, never mind that she can't answer him, stroking the brindled fur of her neck. The dog whines low and quiet, ears twitching toward the door, so he unlocks the door and holds her by the collar to keep her from running forward, just in case.

There is a dark mass curled up on his porch in the brightening dawn. Steve abruptly releases Missy's collar without meaning to and she darts over the threshold, sniffing at the person curled up on the front steps.

Bucky half-turns to look at the dog, at Steve. Slowly he raises his metal arm to Missy then drops it, like he's not sure what he's supposed to do with it. 

"I," he begins, and stops himself. His eyes dart around, wild, and for a second Steve is terrified he'll bolt again even as Missy noses at him curiously, too cautious to cover him in slobbery licks.

What Bucky ends up saying is, "I like what you've done with the porch." 

He avoids Steve's eyes. He glances from the threshold to Steve's bare feet on the stained wood.

"Would you like to come in?" Steve takes a half-step aside in the doorway. Enough to let Bucky in, but not wide enough that Bucky feels obligated to. 

And for what seems like forever Bucky just...stares at him, long and hard. Something in his eyes is searching out something in Steve's. Not that he knows what Bucky's looking for but there's intent behind that gaze, and none of the vitriol or dead-eyed blankness. 

Whatever he's looking for, he seems to find it because he uncurls from the front step and stands. He says, "I would," and he does.

 

~**~

 

In one dusty corner of his memories, Steve can recall Howard Stark, drunk in London, waxing on and on about how in the future everything will be done with the touch of a button. None of this tinkering around, adjusting dials and levers and convoluted step-by-step processes. Just one touch and everything will fall into beautiful, automatic process. 

His drunken prediction has come true and it's manifest in his son, because Steve can add Bucky's biometric signature to the security system, effectively disarming it against him with a single command.

(The verbal panic button can still be tripped with Bucky in the perimeter, the cautious part of Steve's brain helpfully reminds him. He ignores it. He knows he's spectacularly, willingly dumb for this man.)

And wonder of futuristic wonders, he can make coffee for the both of them without even having to pour water into the machine, just a single flick of the on switch and it hisses to life. In the background there's a buzzing that is not part of the coffee maker's cycle - he dimly recognizes as his phone on the table - but he ignores it for now.

"Are you hungry?" He sets two mugs down on the counter. Bucky looks up at him for a moment and then inclines his head ever so slightly. 

Light casts the stainless steel in the kitchen in a soft warm glow as the sun rises outside, and the coffee's aroma fills the air, dark and rich. Steve opens the fridge for a second, turning something over in his mind that is, if he's being totally honest, making his skin crawl. 

He shuts the fridge door and turns back around, steeling himself.

"Okay, I need to - I'm going to be to be totally honest here, if this is how it's gonna be." He exhales, long and slow. "I don't know what I'm doing, Buck. I don't want this to be like last time. I don't want to hurt you without meaning to."

Bucky looks him over from where he's leaning against the wall, cool. Pale and unkempt as ever, he's gaunt and there are dark circles beneath his eyes. But he's not any less handsome than Steve remembers - possibly even more handsome, for all Steve is grateful to see him again. But this part isn't about him and what he wants, he reminds himself. 

This is about what they both _need_ \- he needs to take care of himself. And Bucky needs his help, but he can't take on the weight of the world and sacrifice himself in the process. 

"If I'm not going to hurt you, I need to know how to help you. You can tell me what you want - what you don't want. Or you don't have to talk to me if you don't want, just - let me know. If you can. Does that - does that make sense?"

"You're terrible at this," Bucky comments, and Steve laughs before he realizes. 

At his abrupt noise of laughter Bucky's face twitches, and for a second Steve worries he's startled him, but it's an upward twitch of the lips, one that he seems to push back off his face as soon as he realizes it's happened. Steve feels tightness in his chest dissipate some as the StarkHome coffee machine beeps, kitchen permeated with the smell of fresh coffee (and Lord, what was it with Stark technology and beeping?).

He leaves the creamer and sugar out on the counter so they can both fix up their coffees - he remembers exactly how Bucky used to take his shitty Brooklyn coffee, ages and ages ago. Now, he remembers the shattered mug of coffee he'd fixed Bucky that morning out on the porch, and mentally casts it aside. He fixes up his own mug - milk, sugar - and steps back. This is Bucky's choice now.

For a second Bucky looks at him like he's taken leave of his senses, but he pours his mug of coffee like he'd watched Steve do and then he steps back. 

"I used to take it with milk." His voice is flat, but he sounds unsure. Hesitant. Steve nods slowly. He doesn't want to encourage Bucky back to the past, to how things used to be. This is about what he wants now, as he is. As they both are.

Bucky frowns. He still looks lost, glancing between the mug of coffee and the creamer sitting on the counter like they're supposed to tell him what to do. 

Steve's dimly aware during this whole exchange that there's a huge mental dialogue happening between Bucky's ears, in language and cadence he can't even fathom. He sits tight through the urge to say something and sips his own coffee, feeling his own fingers tighten around the World's Best Grandpa mug handle. It can't be his decision; he can't help. He tamps down his panic, wondering if he should look away - if his gaze is putting undue pressure on Bucky. 

Then - _oh_ , then - something lightens in Bucky's face and the tension between his brows melts away. He picks up the creamer - and puts it back in the fridge. 

Bucky carefully stirs a spoonful of sugar into his black coffee and takes an experimental sip. He grimaces, and stirs in two more. Only once does he glance at Steve during this silent experimentation, when he stirs in the last spoonful as if to make sure taking sweetener was okay to begin with. 

Cautiously he sips it. 

And it must be right, because he sits down at the kitchen table. 

"You should be scared of me," he says conversationally. 

Steve sits down across the table from him, warming his hands against the morning chill around his mug. "I know."

Glancing sidelong at him through thick eyelashes, Bucky sips his coffee and he's right - Steve is scared, he's terrified, but buoyant with rapidly-expanding hope. It fills up his chest like helium, light.

 

~**~

 

Tightrope-walking has never been high on Steve's list of must-dos so he can't accurately liken this new strange space to keeping his balance above a hundred-foot fall with no safety net but he suspects it's awfully similar. Still, his hope keeps him suspended above that huge fall, even when being reminded of the danger makes him dizzy for seconds at a time. 

The buzzing on his phone, it turns out, was Natasha responding in the least-subtle coded message he's ever received:

_So STARK trying to KISS you was ALARMING._

He has to think for a second before responding because, really? _Not the best kiss I've had in New York but I'm okay._  
 _I can't believe you are an internationally renowned assassin and that is the best you came up with,_ he adds a moment later.

_:)_ she responds. He suspects she is enjoying herself immensely. _Stark is working on his technique so next time it will be less alarming. Keep me posted and let me know if you need us._  
 _I don't kiss and tell but you'll always be the first to know._

Presumably after that, Bucky's biometric signature is added to KISS's database. Steve knows the verbal panic button, and that it can still be triggered even with Bucky in the perimeter - but that's one of the things that triggers his tightrope-vertigo of things that don't bear thinking about, so he does not think about it. 

For one, Bucky doesn't give him cause to think about it. He sleeps on the couch. He doesn't leave his back exposed when eating or sleeping. He tries his coffee differently on the second day, and then goes back to sweetened black coffee on the third. He makes little choices, ones that normal people wouldn't even register.

But this is about as far removed from the realm of normalcy as Steve's gotten, and he fought space aliens, so he steps up to the plate and tries his best. One more day passes, and then another, and they manage to not slip and fall.

Bucky takes hour-long showers, wears Steve's old clothes that are just slightly too big on him. Sometimes he doesn't eat at all, but more often than not he's ravenous - so Steve still winds up cooking a lot, but this time runs options by Buck. One time he left meat on the counter to defrost, and came back to the kitchen to find it swapped out with something else, a "??" scribbled onto the paper towel the package was defrosting on. Steve suppressed a grin - because of course asking for turkey over beef was fine - and started pulling the baking pans out.

And Steve doesn't hover, but he is hyper-vigilant about monitoring his language: He doesn't think he's ever said "please" so many times in his life, or "Only if you want to," which he tacks onto just about everything. 

That lasts all of three more days.

"I want to go somewhere." 

Steve cracks his head on the pantry shelf in his surprise. When he wheels around Bucky is standing at the bottom step, still dripping from the thirty-minute shower Steve didn't even hear him get out of. Water drips from his long hair to the loose shoulders of his shirt, there's a raw, scrubbed-pink shine to his skin. Steve absently wonders if there's any hot water left, but that's crowded out by the slightly defiant stare Bucky is shooting him.

"You want to go somewhere?" 

Bucky nods. "That's what I said." 

In an instant Steve's tactical brain is leaping into overdrive, weighing chances and risks against the odds of this being a good thing - positive, progress. On the one hand, getting him out of the house and stimulated might fire up his brain - pull up and prime the more sociable parts of him Steve knows are buried deep in there somewhere. 

On the other, it could end in ways he doesn't even want to imagine. 

There's something clouding over in Bucky's face, like he expects Steve to say _no_. He twitches a little like he wants to say something at precisely the same moment Steve rubs the sore bump on his head and says, "Sure, I'll drive." 

 

They drive up and down the main stretch of town four times before Bucky finally points to the diner. When Steve pulls into the parking lot Bucky immediately shoves his hand in his left pocket. 

The bells on the door jingle cheerfully, the whole joint smells of caramelized onions and burgers on the grill. It is, thankfully, mostly empty. 

"Morning, Grant," the waitress calls from behind the counter. 

"Morning, Linda," Steve says. "Room for two?"

The waitress surveys the two of them critically from behind her thick-framed glasses. "Table, booth, or counter, wherever's free. Who'd you bring with you?" She turns her spotlight attention fully onto Bucky, who looks like a deer caught in headlights put on the spot like that. He recovers himself quickly. 

"James. It's a pleasure, miss."

"Miss?" Linda repeats approvingly, glancing back at Steve. She peers at Bucky through the lenses of her glasses. "I like this one already, he can stay."

Bucky fidgets under Linda's full attention at the table , but there's an uncharacteristic color to his cheeks when she calls him "doll" and sweeps off with their drinks order. Steve relaxes into the cushy booth seat, even though Bucky is ruler-straight. His left hand hasn't left his pocket. 

"It's safe here," Steve says to him, under Linda's off-key humming along with the radio behind the counter. "You can relax." 

It looks like a struggle, that inner war Steve saw the other day over the coffee happening all over again. When it's over Bucky's shoulders are a little looser, his face less tight around the eyes. 

"It's hard," he mumbles.

"What is? Relaxing?" Steve leans forward in his seat, though not close enough to crowd Bucky in the little booth. Bucky shakes his head emphatically.

"No." He glances to Linda behind the counter, the grill cook's paper hat just visible behind the divider between kitchen and dining room. "Not seeing everything as a threat." 

Steve has to wait until Linda bustles back over to the table and drops their drinks off (Steve ordered a chocolate milkshake, more for Bucky than himself) and takes their orders for burgers (one plain, one cheese) before he can reply. "No one's going to come after you now. Not while I'm here." Bucky doesn't look entirely convinced, and that more than anything spurs him to blurt out, "Do you see me as a threat?" 

Bucky dips the plastic straw up and down in his water, but doesn't drink. "Sometimes." 

Tactician Brain is already formulating all sorts of strategies to be as non-threatening as possible, carefully crafting a response that is neither unsupportive nor clingy. "Can I help you feel less afraid?" 

But Bucky shakes his head. His brow's furrowed. "It's not you. It was you - and it's like how you're safe." When it doesn't immediately register that Steve's understood what he's said, he shakes his head again. "You're safe also, sometimes. And you're -" His eyes flicker around the diner. "Important." 

Linda picks a terrible time to deliver the food to their table. Steve would sit through a lukewarm burger and fries if it meant that Bucky could open up, explain what he's saying, because Steve isn't getting it and that's for damn sure. 

But when the plates are on the table Bucky falls quiet again, looking at his openfaced cheeseburger and all the fixings like they contain secrets he can't divine. 

"Everything all right?" 

"I don't like cheeseburgers," Bucky says, the corners of his mouth tugging downward. "I forgot that I don't." 

"Hey, that's an easy fix." Steve stops reaching for the ketchup to swap their plates across the table. 

Bucky eats slow. He pauses between bites, chewing carefully, occasionally he closes his eyes like he's trying to commit the tastes and textures to memory. After so many years of....well. Steve doesn't want to think about what he ate as the Soldier, whether they fed him properly, but remembers the way he ate that first, disastrous attempt at recovery: Automatic, like he barely tasted. 

If Steve were anyone else he'd miss the small-tinder warmth in Bucky's eyes upon opening them. But because Steve is Steve, he doesn't miss it. It's not the way Bucky used to look at him, a rush of affection, hot and warm, but he'll take it and hold it close with his hope anyway.

"Can I ask what you remember?" he says, belatedly realizing he's supposed to be eating too. He puddles ketchup on his plate and tucks into his burger, which is delicious, just the right amount of grease and cheese. 

Still chewing slow and careful, Bucky doesn't answer for a while. "Parts from earlier. Things like - a floating car. It was red." Steve nods, remembering the Expo. "And I wore a blue coat. I don't know what happened to it after. I felt my arm when it wasn't there. And I remember the cold." His face goes crumpled, thoughtful. He shakes his head even as Steve wonders if maybe he shouldn't have asked the question. "They're far away. Like dreams. I remember things that I did and they're far away too, and I don't know which are real and which are the dreams." And he goes quiet.

In the back, Steve can hear the metallic scrape of spatulas on the grill over the slight buzz of the neon in the diner windows. Linda's turned on the radio to the local station that only plays Oldies and weather reports, but keeps it on low. 

"I need you to tell me if I'm okay."

"I don't think I can be the one tell you that, Buck."

Bucky shakes his head. The music on the radio turns over from The Drifters to the opening chords of an Elvis tune he'd once danced to with Emma at the bar: _Well since my baby left me, I found a new place to dwell._ Steve puts his burger down, because suddenly it's difficult to chew and eat. 

"I need you to tell me what's real," Bucky says, voice small. "When I dreamed, it was of you. You're important." 

Steve's tongue feels thick, and in the background Elvis croons, _You make me so lonely baby, I get so lonely, I get so lonely I could die._

"I cared - I care for you," he corrects himself. "That's real and it always will be."

Steve doesn't know what to say to fill this silence, nor the patchy holes that riddle his memories. But Bucky's looking at Steve the way he used to, right after Steve got taller, broader. It's not quite jealousy, but it's not quite anything else either.

"You're doing okay," Bucky says. Steve resists the urge to laugh hysterically. 

"This is a very recent development," he says honestly. "It's touch and go." 

"But you are. Okay. I just need to follow your lead, right?" 

Like a trapdoor, the bottom drops out of his stomach. In the background, Elvis croons about heartbreak and Steve's never felt less charitably inclined towards the King than he does now. "Following me never did you a whole lot of good, Buck," he says gently.

"But I did it anyway," Bucky says. There's so much of his old bullheadedness hiding in his eyes, in the set of his mouth, that Steve can't take it any more. "And I'm going to keep doing it - it's the right thing to do. I think." He hesitates. "I _know_. I'm supposed to follow you. That's real." 

Something in the back of his brain is screaming _danger danger danger_. He can't pile this on Bucky, not when he's supposed to be watching out for the both of them, proceeding with caution, recovery, and their highest good in mind. But he can't stop it from slipping out: "I missed you so much, Bucky." 

There's a moment when Bucky can't meet his eyes - glancing down and away, like he's trying to remember something. His jaw clenches and loosens, as if reliving conversations from decades ago. For a second distress is writ clear on his face, and Steve's wondering if he'll bolt again, but when he finally, finally meets Steve's eyes again his gaze is soft, liquid. He doesn't go anywhere. He doesn't say anything but somehow Steve knows that he's been missed too, in not so many words. 

They order three types of pie, and a fourth when Bucky doesn't like any of the old ones he used to enjoy. Steve's never liked rhubarb and neither did Bucky, but he swipes a bite of Bucky's slice of strawberry-rhubarb pie, and orders him a second once the first is demolished. 

"I like a man with an appetite," Linda says cheekily, when she comes to drop off the check. In the past Bucky was an Olympic-level champion of flirting with waitresses, but given Bucky's earlier fidgeting under Linda's scrutiny, Steve's not sure the overt flirtatiousness is entirely welcome, for all Linda means no harm. 

He's sitting there unsure whether to intervene in an awkward social situation or not when he catches the sly little wink Bucky treats Linda to when he hands her their stacked-up pie plates.

 

~**~

 

It's hard to focus on work that afternoon, but Steve knows the rain is coming and it'll be quickly followed by snow. The house has weathered through summer thunderstorms without leaking but never constant chilly downpours, and he's worried about how the roof will hold up under the weight of snow besides. He wants to check for drafts and gaps that will let in the cold, wants to seal the covered back porch, or at the very least start on the weatherproof stain on the deck. 

Bucky disappeared as soon as they got back from the diner and driving home there was something in the set his shoulders and mouth that told Steve he needed to be alone with this thoughts for an afternoon, so he changes into his filthiest pair of work pants and gets to work. Only, when he's prying the lid off the can of wood stain he realizes it's awfully quiet. Housework is always accompanied a cold nose jutting against his hand, and he can only get so much work done before she drops a toy for him to throw into whatever he's doing. 

He covers the sweet-smelling stain and tromps off the porch. Missy's not in the house, nor in the front yard where he'd be able to hear her tags jingling. Bemused, he wanders toward the back yard, past the collapsed outbuilding up to the moldering white fence that juts up against the acres of dry fields at the back of the property. 

He sees Missy first, curled up at the bottom of the walnut tree close to the fence. Her ears prick and her tail starts wagging immediately at his approach, but he holds off from getting too close because he can see the metal hand resting in the thick fur at the ruff of her neck. It's stilled, frozen like Steve's caught him doing something he's not supposed to. He can't see Bucky himself, propped against the other side of the walnut's thick trunk. 

"Your mutt's a pest." The metal hand hesitates, then resumes the petting Steve's approach interrupted. "I must smell like burgers because she followed me back here. Won't leave me alone for anything."

"Yeah, well." Steve steps carefully so the walnut husks crunching beneath his feet signals his approach to the other side of his tree. "Bad habit of hers. Guess she picked it up from me."

He hears something that might be a snort. Missy looks up at him and wags her tail even as Bucky studiously avoids his eyes like a cat, looking over the empty fields. 

"Are you all right?" Steve asks.

Bucky glances up at him, then back down at Missy, and removes his hand to her obvious chagrin. "Christ, Rogers, you ever gonna get tired of asking me that?"

"Not until I know the answer is yes."

Bucky definitely snorts again, but it's a little less exasperated than Steve thinks he intended for it to be. Drawing his legs up to his chest, he rests his arms on his knees and curls in, until Steve can't see anything of his face other than his eyes, bright blue beneath the curtain of his dark hair. 

Deciding to throw in her lot with the person who will consistently deliver pets and snuggles, Missy sidles up to Steve's side and butts her head beneath his hand - he has no choice but to oblige, scratching her ears the particular way she likes. 

"I'm going to do some work on the porch," Steve offers, as the moments stretch on. Bucky doesn't show any signs that he registers Steve's even talking. "Would you maybe want to help?"

Still quiet. "Goes faster with two sets of hands," Steve adds. Dragging his gaze sidelong from the field to Steve, Bucky hesitates for a long, quiet moment until he shakes his head minutely from side to side. 

"That's fine," Steve says, rubbing Missy's ears. "I'll be up front if you need anything, okay?"

He waits until Bucky's nodded once to return to the front of the house, Missy trotting alongside him as happy as can be. He snaps the rubber gloves on and dips the stiff bristles of a new brush into the can of wood stain. It goes on the weathered wood a rich, dark brown that reminds him of molasses - dark enough for contrast, and unless he chooses Pepto-Bismol pink, won't clash terribly with whatever he ends up reprinting the house. 

Staining is slow work, starting at the far end and meticulously running the brush along the grain of each long board. It makes his arms and shoulders ache from hunching forward, the ache reminiscent of hours spent bent over sketchpads and easels when he was small and his bones frail. Behind him on the bottom step, Missy settles down to chew one of the myriad socks she sneaks from Steve's hamper and secrets away in the front yard. Every so often she raises her head, ears pricked toward the back of the house, but always settles down to gnaw on the sock again. 

By himself and working carefully, it takes a good hour and a half to knock out the boards closest to the front of the house and the door. He's just about to start on the third board over from the edge of the porch when hears footsteps behind him. At the same time Missy launches herself from the step over to Bucky, the sock - now soaked in slobber and covered in grass clippings and leaves - hanging from her mouth. 

"Eugh, Missy, that's gross, get back here and leave him alone," Steve calls over his shoulder - and is surprised to hear the rustling of the plastic hardware store back and the snap of a rubber glove. He glances back. Bucky's adjusting the fit of the rubber glove over his right hand. 

"You might want one for the left," he suggest, to cover his surprise. Bucky shrugs. 

"Believe me, nothing can stain this. Where are the other brushes?"

"Second bag, there should be a few more."

"Ah." 

Steve has to turn his attention back to the task at hand, fumbling the brush before a huge dollop of wood stain plops onto the deck. "You changed your mind," he says conversationally, hearing more crackly static of bags behind him.

Bucky grunts, seating himself on the second step. "Remembered I could."

Steve feels a warm rush of pride. "You always can," he says. "Whenever you want."

"Well, if that's the case, I'm gonna change my mind again and just watch you do this."

A startled laugh escapes Steve before he can help it. "Except for right now. Especially not right now, you're not allowed to change your mind," he says, hoping Bucky hears the joke in it. 

He must, because Bucky just swipes the can of stain away from Steve's side and settles it in between them. He can't work on the porch itself - Steve is still occupying it, and he's still sitting on the front steps. He dips the brush into the stain and drags it across the top of the railing's board, leaving a precise line. 

Steve returns to work, at ease with Bucky working quick and quiet behind him, until he glances back and notices that Missy's shoved her head beneath Bucky's metal hand again. He pets her idly with one hand, deftly handling the brush with the other, until he notices Steve staring at them. 

"Don't worry," he says flatly, "I won't stain the mutt." 

Steve laughs. "It won't be the worst mess she's gotten herself into. Beneath the kitchen floor there's blue paw prints all over the vapor barrier because of her."

Bucky huffs quietly through his nose, something that might be his new equivalent of a laugh. For a second Steve quietly watches the wry twist to his face, the new and altered language of him that he has to learn, and remembers the day that Missy tracked those blue paw prints all over the kitchen when he was missing Bucky so badly it felt like every iota of him was burning and freezing by degrees. 

Now he's here, petting Steve's dog and painting the deck alongside him. Steve is almost bowled over by sheer gratitude - though to what or whom he's still not sure. 

Technically, they were only working with one and a half pairs of hands, so it still took almost until dark to stain the whole thing. As far as Steve's concerned, that's just fine by him: Missy enjoyed the attention and stayed out of the stain, and he's starting to suspect that Bucky didn't mind having the dog pressed up against his side, seeking pets and ear scratches. 

As the front porch is drying, they have to go back into the house through the covered porch in back. (Steve sees spider webs creeping back onto the ceiling and mentally moves it up a few notches on his to do list.) He kicks off his shoes at the back door, pacing around the kitchen in his socks and pouring himself a glass of water from the tap in the fridge door. Bucky immediately springs for the shower, despite bathing earlier that morning. He's halfway up the stairs when Steve finds his words. 

"Thank you, Bucky. I really appreciate the help."

Bucky shrugs with one shoulder and continues up the stairs. A few moments later, the bathroom door clicks shut and the shower starts. 

With the noise of the pipes running at full capacity upstairs and the clunking of the water heater kicking on in the basement, Steve rolls the ache out of his shoulders and thinks about what to make for dinner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to poke me on tumblr @vodkaanddebauchery if I'm taking too long to update again :3

**Author's Note:**

> E) I am on tumblr as vodkaanddebauchery and would love to talk to you and get your feedback/feels/fandom meta there.


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